


Not as Expected

by kunaigirl



Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: M/M, otgw - Freeform, wirterburker - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 46,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3170171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunaigirl/pseuds/kunaigirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something's off in the neighborhood and it leads to some unexpected friendships and bonds over circumstances no one saw coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

This morning started just like any other, the little plastic radio on the nightstand started beeping at seven, and then automatically tuning into some AM station that was either nothing but static or old re-run music from decades past. I rolled over and pounded the alarm off, slowly sat up, and started to get ready for the day. It was pretty normal as far as mid-week school morning’s tend to go, although I felt like something was off. I noticed that Greg wasn’t at his usual post of waiting for me at my door, but figured he’d just slept in or something. I walked over to his room and knocked on the door lightly. 

“Greg?” I asked. When there was no answer, I walked in and found him still sleeping in bed. “Greg?” I asked again nudging him gently, “Aren’t you supposed to be getting up for school soon?”

Greg responded with a low groan and muffled words as he just rolled over so his back was facing me. This wasn’t something he normally did, so I of course looked more into it, bothering him until I got an answer. He explained that he wasn’t feeling well at all, that his stomach was upset and he didn’t want to leave his bed. I would have inquired more, but I still had to wait for the bus outside, which at this point would be in a few minutes. I simply patted his back and left. On my way down I told Mom that Greg was feeling sick and that he wasn’t going to school today. As I grabbed my bag and left the front door, I saw her head upstairs to check on him herself. 

I wasn’t worried, if there was one thing Mom was good at, it was taking care of sick kids. She would make the best chicken noodle soup you’d ever have in your life. As I walked down the block, I noticed some commotion up the street. Nothing too bad, but it was causing a little bit of traffic. There were 3 police cars parked in front of a house on the corner, and it was making things a little complicated for people trying to turn down the street. I tried to see if I could get a view of what was happening, but it was just an awkward angle where nothing could really be made out. 

Before I knew it the bus came to get me, and I was eager to get on. I knew that we had to drive past that house on the way to school, and I wanted to try and get a better look. I mean, it was nothing special I guess, just a few cops checking out a house or something, there wasn’t anything really exciting going on....But I was curious. Nothing usually happened on my street, but this had started to become a frequent thing. Maybe twice a week there would be police at that house, and no one ever knew why. Of course I’d hear mild gossip and rumors floating around when my parents would have the neighbors over, but nothing was solid. As we passed it everyone else on the bus had the same idea as me, and everyone was pressed against the windows trying to get a look at the scene. I didn’t get to see anything other than the sky above everyone’s heads. The bus driver of course yelled at us to sit back down, and I was just bummed out that I didn’t get to see anything. A few kids who were lucky enough to have window seats started to mumble to each other about something they had seen out there. A few others were listening in and sharing curious expressions. I would have approached them myself and ask what they’d seen, but that wasn’t something I’d do. If there was one thing solid about me, it was that I loved staying out of people’s way. I kept to myself, and things were comfortable that way. If I was curious enough about something, I would just do my best to listen in from the sides and nothing more. That way I could still get information without bothering anyone. Perfect win-win. 

The news of what those kids saw outside spread pretty fast. There was always a 10 minute period between getting off the bus and class starting every morning, and today everyone was mumbling to each other. I felt pretty left out, but knew that I had no information to contribute anyway. I was unloading my books into my locker like always, when suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. Turning around I was greeted by Sara, who had a look of confusion and curiosity on her face. She had started visiting me at my locker in the mornings, but she would always just say “hi!” or something. The fact that she didn’t meant something was up. 

“Hey Sara,” I said, still putting some books away, “What’s up? Is there something on your mind?”

“Oh! Yeah actually there is, but first, where’s Greg? I didn’t see him yet today and he’s normally running around outside with the other kids by now.”

“He’s out sick today, nothing to be worried about. He’ll be fine.”

“Well, tell him I said to feel better soon!...and also, Wirt? You live on West Avenue Street, right?”

Sara suddenly was bringing up my address now? This was kind of weird, probably something about that house on the corner I bet. “Yeah, I live there. Before you ask about anything though, I just want to say that if it’s got anything to do that house where the cops are all the time? I know know nothing about that. I have no idea why they’re always there lately or who it’s for or for what or anything.” 

Sara gave me a concerned and puzzling look in response. I didn’t think I had a harsh tone or something, so why she gave me that look confused me. “What’s wrong?” I asked, “Was-Did I say something rude because if I did I didn’t mean-” 

“No, no. That’s fine, you weren’t rude don’t worry. Although it is sort of weird that you don’t know who lives on your street.”

“Well, you know me.” I said, closing my locker and preparing to walk to class. “I like to mind my own business and all that.”

“Yeah I do, but I just thought you’d be interested by what I heard today. It’s got something to do with all those cops at that house up the street...And honestly, I’m surprised you wouldn’t at least a little more interested in looking into things considering who’s house it is.” 

I turned around. “You know who lives there?”

“Don’t pretend that you don’t-” Right while we were talking, the morning bell rang and it was time to go our separate ways. I was about to leave when Sara stopped me and whispered, “Wirt, That’s Jason’s house.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2! Nothing really to add on this one.

First period passed by without incident, although people where talking among each other about something I couldn’t quite make out. It was a work day, the teacher had given out a few papers and we took some notes, and then the rest of the period was devoted to “in-class-homework” time. I couldn’t really focus because of what Sara had told me just an hour before. I felt really dumb for not knowing that someone like him lived so close by and I never noticed. Well, I’d never seen him get on the bus or anything. The other part of me was concerned to say the least, finding out that his house was the one that cops were at almost twice a week now. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary all of the other days though, Jason seemed to be completely fine. I shrugged and doodled on the corners of my paper as I just wondered what could be so wrong with someone who’s apparently got the perfect life? 

The lunch bell eventually rang half way through the day, and Sara must have gossiped a little because a few people started asking me questions in the hallway that I didn’t know the answer to. Why was everyone so stuck on this? There were just cops, no action or anything. It’s just the fact that this school is so cut-dry and boring that every single adolescent in here is so desperate for entertainment they cling on to the first unusual thing and hope it’s something that they could hold conversations up with. This mind-set they all had did bother me a little, but again, I just stayed out of everyones way. 

I sat at the lunch table alone, as per usual. It’s not that I didn’t have any friends that would sit with me, but the time lunches fell on different times and depended on the persons schedule. There were 3 lunch periods a day, and I just happened to be the only one out of the group to have a later lunch. Again, nothing really bothered me about it. It was a good and solid 45 minutes to myself. I could just sit here, eat my food, keep to myself, and maybe read or write. Just then, not long after I had just sat down with my tray, I heard a voice call out to me. 

“Wirt! Wirt! Hey Wirt!”

Ohhhh no. 

“Hey Wirt! I didn’t know you had this lunch! Mind if I sit with you? Can’t be any fun just sitting by yourself n’ all.”

It was none other than Jason Funderburker. I instinctively and automatically responded with my usual eye-roll and groan, but seeing as he had already sat down beside me there was no getting rid of him now. 

“Hi, Jason,” I said in a less-than-pleased tone of voice, “ What are you doing here? I thought you had the early lunch block with everyone else.” 

“Well, normally I do, but I was late to school today.” He said, pulling a sandwich out of a crinkled up brown lunch bag. “I had a few things I needed to settle with the main office about being late, I had to work through my normal one and get pushed back to this one.” 

That was weird. “Why did they push you to a later lunch just because you were late? They don’t just do that.”

“No, you’re right, they don’t. The thing of it is though I’ve been late about 9 times now just the past 2 weeks. I needed the extra time to get caught up on the work I missed, that’s what I was talking to the office about.”

I thought to myself ‘...past 2 weeks huh? Mr. Perfect late almost 10 times starting when the cops showed up? What the heck were you up to?’....I of course didn’t say anything because I normally keep to myself anyways. However, today obviously wasn’t any normal day seeing how the most popular, amazing, socially accepted, star-student who could sit with ANYONE, just chose to sit with me. Most of the time I just go out of my way to ignore him and pretend he’s not there, but like most cases where I’m forced into interaction, he was talking to me first. It would be rude to ignore him now while there was no one else to pretend to talk to. My inner monologues where put to a stop when he suddenly spoke up again.

“When I was leaving my house today I saw greg sitting out on your front steps. He was eating soup and watching the cars drive by. Him not going to school is definitely not like him. Is he sick or something?”

I stared at him. “Why does it matter if he’s home sick from school for a day. Kids get sick all the time.”

Jason gave me an odd look for that comment. I must’ve come off as sounding short-tempered or something. “I was only asking because Greg doesn’t normally stay home is all.” He said, “I wanted to make sure he was ok.” 

“You care about Greg?” 

“Of course! Who doesn’t like Greg?”

“No one I guess. It must be nice being well-liked by literally everyone you meet.” I said, giving him a sort of ‘yeah-you-know-exactly-what-I’m-talking-about-don’t-you?’ look. 

He frowned and averted his eyes. “Well, not everyone likes me.” He said, his voice sounding a little more quiet, almost embarrassed. 

“I call bullshit on that one.” I said as I took another bite of the pizza I had picked up. “Literally everyone likes you and you know it.”

Jason glared at me for a second as if I offended him, but then quickly shook it off and sighed. “No, really. Believe me, there are people out there who don’t like me.”

“Name one.”

“Well, there’s you, obviously.” 

I blinked. I mean, was that true? Yeah. But....there was just something about hearing him say it to me as if he already knew that suddenly made me want to verify that I didn’t dislike him. “W-well,” I started, scratching the back of my head nervously, “It’s not that I don’t like you or anything, it’s just....We...We just haven’t gotten to spend much time together! Yeah! Like, we never hang out or anything! So it’s not that I don’t like you, it’s just that I don’t know you that well!” 

I felt like I just shot myself in the foot with that comment. What was I even doing? Why was I trying to impress this guy? The guy that everyone already likes? Either way, I had already said it, and Jason had this big stupid smile on his face. “So, you want to hang out with me sometime?” He asked eagerly, practically looking like he was going to fall out of his seat until I said something back. 

“Uh, yeah sure.” 

“Can we hang out today after school?” 

“Sure.” 

“Great! I’ll be right over as soon as I get off the bus!”

“Right, cool. So, are you going to be coming to my house or-“

“Yes! I’ll be at your house-”

As if right on queue, the bell rang. We both started packing up but before I could begin to leave, Jason suddenly reached out and grabbed my arm. He whispered, “Thank you so much, I had no where else to go tonight.” and then took off to class. I stood there confused. What the hell did that mean? He had no other plans? Well, ok then.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 3!

I was waiting for the bus outside with Sara once the last period had ended. I had told her about how Jason approached me and what he said, but instead of acting all weird like I did, she had a deep look of worry on her face. “He really said that to you? Just like that?”

“Yeah, so what? You know he can be kind of weird sometimes. I’m just surprised he came to me of all people.” 

“Look, I have no idea why you think it’s so weird, but the bottom line is that he reached out to you. That comment he made? It means he’s really looking forward to it. Now, you’re a great person and all, but think about it. Like you said, this is Jason. He doesn’t normally go to people he’s not close-friends with. Maybe something is really wrong. Maybe he’s looking for help. Maybe it’s got something to do with why there are cops at his house a lot these days! You better be nice to him. While he’s hanging out with you, ask him about what’s been going on. Because he hasn’t been talking to any of us lately, but he’s talking to you. So make sure everything’s ok, got it?” 

Her voice was so stern. “Uh...wow ok.” I mumbled, though deep in my mind she brought up a lot of points I didn’t think of. I wasn’t worried if Jason was ok or not, he always was. His ability to just magically be ok with everything is what makes him Jason. That’s the part of him I was always so envious of. Jason never got depressed or down on himself....so annoying. However, I was still seriously curious as to why the police are constantly at his house. If I could get anything out of this it could at least be a few answers I could spread around so people can finally stop talking about it. “I’ll make sure he feels welcome.” is all I managed to say. She seemed satisfied with that and then we just parted ways to the busses. 

When I got home, I told Mom that Jason would be stopping over for a little while. She was of course happy as can be that I was having a “friend” over, since I never do. So then the only thing I had left to do was to go tell Greg, who responded with excitement only seconds before he groaned and laid back down in his bed. I smiled, patted his head, and told him to just get some sleep. Poor Greg, it sure does suck being sick. When I heard the doorbell ring shortly after I came out of Greg’s room, my mom had already answered it. She welcomed Jason happily and gave him a nice firm handshake at the door before showing him in. I sighed and made my way downstairs. By the time I got there, the two of them were sitting in the kitchen smiling and giggling. She had already given him a glass of water and some of her home-made cookies. When he noticed me standing in the doorway, he waved at me before he finished chewing and gave me his famous “Hi Wirt!” greeting. 

“You didn’t tell me this boy was such a charmer! No wonder you’re always talking about him!”

“MOM!” I shouted, embarrassed. “Don’t say it like that!”

“You talk about me?” Jason asked, a big grin on his face.

“Not like that, my mom’s just trying to embarrass me. Like always....let’s just go upstairs.”

Mom and him talked over cookies for a few more minutes before she pointed out the way to my room, which he then excitedly ran the direction in. “C’mon Wirt!” he smiled.

I went to follow him but my mom grabbed my shoulder. I was getting real tired of being stopped half-way today while in the middle of walking somewhere. “If he tells you anything about why the police are there, let me know.” She said in a stern and low voice. It seemed like everyone wanted to know what was up, but no one wanted to ask or investigate themselves. I rolled my eyes and agreed...not that I was planning on exactly asking him about it. 

When I reached my room he was already looking at my bookshelf, giggling like the annoyance he is. “Quite a bit of poetry you got here.” he said, pulling out one of the collections and flipping through it. I wanted to just slap myself in the face out of the embarrassment. There was no doubt that now he’d go and tell everyone in school about my stupid collection of- “These are some really good ones! I haven’t read this one yet, but seeing how it’s the same author, it’s got to be good. Am I right?”

“Yeah...” I said taking the book from him and putting it back, “It’s one of his lesser-known collections. It’s pretty interesting I guess.”

“You guess?” he laughed, “You own basically all this guy’s work. You obviously like his style. No need to try and hide it.” 

I chuckled a little. “Haha, yeah, you’ve got me there Funderburker. Why do you always have to be right?”

“Please,” He replied, “Just call me Jason, ok? Also, I didn’t really say anything right or wrong. I was just saying that he’s a good author and you-“

“Ok moving on!” I cut in, “So, Jason, what do you want to do?”

“I kinda want to read that book to be honest.” 

“Seriously?”

This was stupid. He invites himself over to my house, and now he just wants to read? Popular and book smart? He had so much of his life together. I gave in and let him read some of the collection. He sat and read at my desk while I sat on my bed and did a little writing of my own. We just sat there and did our own things for almost an hour without saying anything to each other. This was Mr. Social? Defiantly not what I expected. I expected him to be more annoyingly outgoing and energetic, kind of like an older version of Greg or something. But no, Jason Funderburker, THE Jason Funderburker, was just sitting in my room reading one of my books. 

While he sat there quietly reading, I couldn’t help but silently investigate him a bit. What made him so special? His hair was combed all nice, it had just the right amount of frizz that added some level of volume, and his eyes where green and transfixed on the book in front of him. He sat with a bit of a relaxed posture, unlike how I’d see him sitting in school, and he had also taken his hoodie off at the door so he was only a simple white t-shirt. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, that had resulted in part of his pant leg riding up reveling he was wearing 2 different colored socks. There was something really interesting about seeing him so casual like this. It was almost like for a second, he was just another peer from class. Nothing amazing or special at all. He glanced up at me and I quickly looked away. Afraid he was going to ask me why I was staring at him, I quickly came up with something to talk about before he got the chance. 

“So, how are you liking the book so far?” I inquired almost a little too quickly. He probably caught on by now. He just smiled and answered. “The book is great so far, I really didn’t read this one yet...It’s really interesting.”

“I didn’t know you liked poetry.” I admitted. 

“Well, I don’t normally, but there are a few authors out there that I follow from time to time. I mostly like comic books or general fiction on an average day. But like I said, this guy has a lot to say.” He shrugged. 

For some reason I was having a hard time grasping that he was just sitting here talking to me like a normal person. It was like I couldn’t get over the fact that not only was he of all people sitting in my room right now, but also that he wasn’t acting all high-and-mighty. He was just casually dragging along a conversation with me, even though it wasn’t a subject he was completely interested in. He was being pretty nice, nothing I expected at all. I somehow got it in my head that he’d be one-upping me or teasing me about the things I had in my room or something. Was he really just this normal guy? Couldn’t be. It’s just because he was doing something low-key. I decided to just stop beating around the bush and just ask him about what I had seen earlier that day.

“So, uh, Jason. You live in that grey house up near the corner right?”

He expression suddenly dropped like a brick of led. I stopped for a second when I looked at his face. Was something really wrong after all? I continued. “Yeah...I kinda noticed that there have been, I don’t know, a lot of police there recently. I didn’t realize that it was your house. Is everything ok?” I tried to choose my words carefully since he instantly looked worried and sad the second I asked. 

“Oh....that.” he said in an un-characteristically low tone, “Yeah...things have been getting a little hard to handle lately.”

“Really? Like....how? Uh, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“No, it’s fine. I know everyone’s been wondering about all that. I just wasn’t going to say anything until someone asked first...and also not in the middle of school where everyone can hear. It’s not really something I’d like to, uh, advertise.”

Now it was like I had to know. Something really was going on over there...Sara’s suspicions were right. “It’s ok if you don’t want to tell me or anything, I was just wondering.” 

“It’s not a problem, well, at least not right now it isn’t. It’s just you and me in here right? I feel ok telling you as long as no one else is really around...it sounds weird but I trust you.”

Trust me? He hardly knows me! But I wasn’t going to tell him to shut up or anything if he was going to start explaining. He continued. 

“I know you well enough that I can trust you to keep a secret.” 

"Secret?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (((bit of a trigger warning for this one, talks briefly about domestic violence)))

"Secret?" 

“Well, if you promise not to tell anyone else, I’ll tell you. Just remember that the police are already keeping an eye on things, so just don’t freak out or anything, especially not to any of our classmates. I don’t want this to be a source of gossip or worse, you know?”

“I won’t tell anyone.” I said. My curiosity was definitely high now, or maybe it wasn’t so much curiosity anymore but more of a sort of worry. Maybe it was the look in his eyes or the the down-to-earth way he chose to say his words. He was being serious about this, and I suddenly started to think this wasn’t something to laugh about.

“Ok, well, so...” he started, not looking at me at all but more of back at the book. He started playing with the pages as he talked. “Thing in my house have been getting kind of...hard to be around. Um, I mean, things were never really good before, but lately things have just been getting worse and worse than ever before.” He gazed down at the floor, his shoulders tensing up a bit as he continued. “Last week, things started getting violent...like...really violent. My parents started fighting each other really bad, so I called the police. After they agreed to calm down and work things out, they left and I thought everything was ok...but only 2 days later they started fighting again, and again, and again. I kept calling the police, and they had to keep coming to break them up.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “They were...hitting each other?”

“Yeah...they were shouting and screaming and throwing things, and I would just stay up in my room and call someone to help. I was scared of getting between them.”

“They, uh, never hit...you know...they never hit you have they?” My heart was racing and there was a knot in my stomach as those words came out, I was suddenly scared of what he might say. 

“Well, not exactly. I mean, they’ve uh...threatened to before, but that’s why I stay out of their way and call for help instead. But even then, what if they don’t stop? What’ll happen to them?” 

I sat there playing with my fingers awkwardly, I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it for sure wasn’t anything like this. I didn’t know what to say. I was under the impression that he had the perfect life. At least, that’s what he always made it seem like. He never said anything about something like this.

“Did all of this just start recently?”

“Well, the violent stuff did...But they’ve been fighting with each other for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure what else I can do at this point. The police just leave after things settle down, but they never stay settled for very long. I don’t want them to divorce but at this point I think it would be better for them both if they did.”

“Wow...Jason, I’m really sorry to hear that.” I spoke honestly, “I never expected to hear this kind of thing from, well, you of all people.”

“That’s another thing...” Jason mumbled, “If you don’t mind me asking, do you think I’m some kind of superman or something?”

“Huh?”

“You know....I don’t know, I kind of get the feel when I’m around you that you don’t like me. Yet when I talk to our other friends about you, they’re always saying that you’re intimidated by me or something like that. I’m really not anything special and I think it’s stupid to not like me just because you think I’m something I’m not.”

I was stunned. “I-uh...It’s not like that-”

“Wirt, even your MOM told me that you talk about me behind my back. The thing is though, even she said it in such a way that it didn’t sound like you were saying anything mean. I’ve heard things from Greg too sometimes.”

“Well, I mean, you’re a great guy and all..” I trailed on, nervously looking around the room when I talked. I didn’t think I’d ever be called out for this, especially not by him or this soon. I guess his mind is just all over the place right now and he just wants to get as much out of this short visit as possible or something. I went on, “I mean, I’m a little envious of how you’re so popular and social with everyone and-“

“You envy me?” He asked with a look of honest confusion on his face.

“Well, yeah. Everyone likes you and-“

“Not everyone likes me Wirt. Seriously. There are a TON of people in that school that are just looking for other ways to judge me. Why do you think I really want to avoid making this domestic crap public? The fact that I chose to be so social meant I was up for that kind of judgement right away. It’s bad enough half of the people I meet think I’m slow or stupid right away because of how my voice sounds.” 

He started playing with his hands nervously, “ The only people I’m actually popular with are our classmates, no one else. There’s more than one grade in the entire school. Everyone else, the upperclassmen and such all laugh at me. I just choose not to let it stop me as much...but I still hear them. They say things like ‘wow look at that poor little shit, trying to be all top notch and popular with the other babies of the school.’ It isn’t fun to hear. Even you think I’m trying to be ‘top-notch’ or something when I’m just wanting to be friends with a lot of people because when I’m at home....When I’m at home all I hear is the disappointment in my parent’s voice when they talk to me. They want me to be top of everything so they can feel better about themselves, having a successful kid makes them look good because inside they’re falling apart even faster than I am. ” 

I was silent. This wasn’t the first time we’ve exactly hung out, but I still had no idea he trusted me this much, to be comfortable enough with me to vent like this. Why wasn’t he going to Sara or one of his other friends for something of this magnitude? They could probably offer better advice or, any advice at all. Maybe he just needed to let this out...I know how that feels. He was saying other things but I was sort of zoned out at that moment because I was trying to figure out what I could say, but then something he said got my attention back right away.

“Wirt...you’re the only person who’s ever idolized me. I don’t know why you started doing that in the first place, but it is what it is....and you’re the only person that ever has. My parents don’t, Sara doesn’t, everyone else doesn’t. To everyone else I’m just another dumb person.”

“Well, you’re obviously not dumb, since you’re saying some really important things right now...you’re really down to earth and you’re constantly dealing with a lot of shit that no one even knows about. That takes strength...to keep up that happy image around everyone in class. To literally not let it stop you from going around and including yourself in peoples lives. It takes guts.” I sighed and stared out my window. “Guts that I sure as hell don’t have. Maybe that’s another thing I’m jealous of.”


	5. Chapter 5

Jason was silent. We both were for a few minutes, and then he smiled at me. Not that annoying ‘I’m about to tell a really bad pun’ kind of smile, an honest one. A genuine one that I haven’t seen on him before. It was kind of like a soft smile that was hiding something behind its honesty, a somewhat hypocritical yet gentle expression that only he could pull off. 

“We don’t need to talk about this anymore if you don’t want to,” He said, bringing his hand up and playing with his hair. “I know I just kinda...went off for a little bit there, I’m sorry if it was too much but, I don’t know...You’re sort of easy to talk to. It’s like I know you don’t have it in you to judge me for this or something.”

Wrong. I am extremely judgmental. Hell, I’ve been being seriously passive-aggressive to him since we first met. But this, this was something different. This was about personal information he’s trusted with no one else and even things about domestic violence. I can be at times, for lack of a better word, a total dick, but I’d have to be completely heartless to shoot him down for opening up like this. If there was one thing I understood, it was bottling things up until they all come spilling out at an unexpected time to someone I wouldn’t have guessed. 

“If it means anything,” I said after a pause, “ I still think you’re really strong for dealing with this...and even more so because you hid it so well AND are able to keep going despite it. It’s really impressive to say the least, it’s a level I know I haven’t reached yet that’s for sure.”

“Let’s talk about something else for a while, ok?” he asked, that smile had turned into an uncomfortable and anxious frown that I’ve often times only seen on myself. 

“Yeah...sure.”

We sat around and did just that. We started talking about a lot of things, stupid and pointless thing that somehow made up both feel better after the bombs he just had been dropping previously in our conversation. We talked about school, friends, stress, and other nit-picky things. He was surprisingly easy to talk to too, once he had settled down a bit. We talked about poetry and ended up free styling a little together, needless to say is was the worst poetry either of us has ever heard. It set us off laughing for quite a while...it was nice. Time started passing really quickly, and before either of us knew, it was dark and Jason needed to be home. I couldn’t put my finer on why, but I really didn’t want him to leave. Oh wait, that’s right. It might’ve had something to do with the fact I learned he lives in a violent household setting. Yeah, that could be it. That’s probably it.

I helped him pack up his things a little and handed him his hoodie at the door. He frowned and looked away for a second. “Hey...um, Wirt?”

“What is it?” 

“Do you think we can maybe...do this again sometime? Maybe, tomorrow if you’re not busy?”

What a dork. “Sure.” I said, “No problem, I never have plans for after school anyways.”

With a big smile on his face, he left without another word. I shut the door behind him and leaned against it for a little while, exhaling a deep breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. How the hell does Jason stay so friendly? I stretched as I made my way over to the kitchen, looking to get something in my stomach. I hadn’t really eaten anything since lunch. I saw Greg sitting at the table with some more chicken soup and my Mom sitting across from him reading the newspaper. I opened up the fridge and first poured myself a glass of milk, followed by microwaving a plate of leftovers form dinner last night. 

“You and that friend of yours sure were talking for a while up there, huh?” I heard my mom’s voice pop up. “Anything interesting?” 

She put a lot of emphasis on the word ‘interesting’ and I wasn’t stupid, I knew exactly what she was gesturing to. I swallowed anxiously, what was I going to say? I promised him that I wouldn’t tell anyone....Now, I know with something like this I should have told her right away, but I still wasn’t quite sure how to deal with it all myself. I decided that I wouldn’t say anything yet, but if things got bad enough, I’d bring it up. Good plan Wirt, good plan.

“He didn’t bring it up.” I said, sitting down. “I guess it must’ve slipped his mind, but I’ll see him again tomorrow in class. Also he wants to hang out again, same time.”

My mother looked at me a little suspiciously but nodded in agreement. “That’s fine, tell him he’s allowed over anytime he wants. It’s not every day that you actually have company of your own over.” 

I chuckled nervously and looked around the room. “Yeah.”

“So,” She continued, “Did the two of you have fun?”

“Yeah we did, turned out to be more fun than I expected.” That was the truth too.

“Well that’s great, dear.” she said picking up Greg’s empty bowl and putting it in the sink, “I’m glad you finally decided to have him over for a change, and I’m glad he’s coming back tomorrow.” 

“Really?” 

“Well, of course. I always hear that you have friends and such at school, but I never get to see any of them. You never bring any of your friends around me or this house, so It’s a good change of pace to say the least. I also heard the two of you laughing a lot earlier, It was good to hear.”  
I ate more of my pasta and just listened. 

“He’s a very nice boy. Just from what I’ve seen before the two of you ran upstairs, there’s no wonder I hear about him so much.”

“Mom, it’s not like that.” I mumbled, “It’s just that he’s-” I found myself pausing and thinking about my words carefully before I spoke them. “He’s...just got his whole life together.” I lied. I just told a bold face lie to my own mother, the guilt was starting to settle in. 

Greg wiped his nose and looked over at me with a wide-eyed smile. “I think Jason is super nice!” He added. Great addition Greg, really helpful.

“Hey Greg? Are you feeling any better?” I asked.

“Weeeeell...” he trailed, “My guts still feel a little weird, but mom says my fever is gone, so I’ll probably be ok to go tomorrow.” 

“That’s good to hear!” I said with a laugh as I ruffled his hair. He giggled and gave me a hug.

I put all my dishes away and headed upstairs to get to bed. I changed into my PJ’s, set my alarm, brushed my teeth, said goodnight to mom and Greg, and got into bed without another word. I closed my eyes and started to drift off into sleep. As I started to doze off, I couldn’t help but wonder about how Jason was doing, or if I’d wake up to more police outside his house tomorrow...

***

As I stepped outside to wait for the bus, I didn’t see any cop cars outside. I figured this was a good sign, but then again, who knows. The bus ride started out quiet, until a few people started pestering me about Jason. I guess word got out that he was at my house last night and everyone wanted to know what happened. This was getting annoying really fast, but it got me thinking. Was this his popularity, or were these people looking for things to use against him? I just shot them all down and continued to sit quietly. When the bus let us all out, I headed to my locker like always, and met up with Sara. 

“So?” She asked right away.

“So what?” 

“So, is everything ok with Jason? Did he tell you anything?”

I set my bag down and stood there sort of awkwardly. I knew that Sara was a good friend to the both of us, so I’d at least tell her more than I told my mom. “Well, he talked to me a little bit about it, but he made me promise not to tell anyone else...you can understand that right?”

She brushed some of her hair behind her ear and leaned against the locker next to mine. “I guess I can, but he’s at least safe right? Because I know his parents can be sort of...out there at times.”

“You know about that?” 

“Yeah, I do. He’s talked to me about that before. That’s why I was so worried, but it’s good that he at least told you that. I can understand if he doesn’t want the whole world knowing, and if he trusted you with this and told you not to tell anyone else, that’s perfectly fine. Just tell me, he’s safe right?”

“Yeah...pretty safe at least.”

“Better than nothing, see you in class Wirt.” 

With that she walked down the hall. 

....I really hope he’s safe. I haven’t seen him this morning yet.


	6. chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ((TW for slight descriptions of domestic violence and depression in this chapter))

Jason was late again, which was mildly concerning due to the fact that there were no cars outside his house. Why was he late? Did something happen last night? Did he get hurt? I was getting myself so worried that I found myself unable to eat my lunch until I could see him walk through the cafeteria doors. I stared at those doors and everyone who entered through them for a solid 5 minutes before I finally caught glance of Jason walking in. 

Something was wrong. 

He kept his eyes on the floor as he cautiously walked in. He was constantly looking over his shoulder, and he kept his hands in his pockets. He didn’t even have a lunch with him, nor did he even try to go wait in line to get one. Instead of walking over to sit with me like we had planned, he planted himself at an empty corner table with his back to everyone. If this had been just a few days ago, I wouldn’t have even batted an eye. I would have actually felt relieved that he wasn’t going to bother me, but a lot can change in a short time...Knowing what I know now, it felt like my heart plunged into my stomach. I looked around the room to see if anyone else was seeing what I was. It didn’t look like anyone else had noticed. With anxiety building up inside with each muscle I moved, I picked up my tray and walked over to where he was sitting. 

My heart was racing as I set my tray down quietly and pulled up a chair. Jason was sitting with his head down, so he didn’t notice me sit down. I instantly started planning in my head how I could get his attention without startling him. I had no idea what was going on, but the general idea my brain was shouting at me definitely made me want to exercise caution so I wouldn’t accidentally scare him. I took another glance around the room, and leaned in closer to him and quietly spoke so only he could hear me out of the crowded room. 

“Jason? Are you ok? It’s Wirt...” 

Jason said nothing and just buried his head deeper into his folded arms. I tried talking to him a few more times, but nothing changed. He wasn’t talking to me, or looking at anything...He was dead silent. My heart sank lower. I leaned back in my seat and started eating quietly, keeping watch of him out of the corner of my eye to see if he would move at all, and he didn’t. He wasn’t going to. I looked behind us to see if anyone else noticed his uncharacteristic behavior, but no one noticed. He could make himself just as invisible as me when he wanted to. This realization made me....so sad. What if this wasn’t the first time he’d done something like this? What if this was only my first time seeing it? What if there were days before, where he’d just sit somewhere with his head down and no one would even bother to check on him? 

I continued to eat my lunch, but I had to do something...anything. Even if he didn’t want to look at me, he at least still needed to know I was still here. I gently put my hand on his shoulder, and everything inside me froze solid. As gentle as I had been in my gesture, he flinched the second contact was made. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. I knew. 

My throat started to sting and ache, and I suddenly felt a light headache come on as all of my thoughts started to slow down until my mind was silent. I sat there, my hand still in place, and I leaned in and whispered quietly to him. 

“I think we should leave school early...I’ll call my mom to come get us.” Without looking up at me, he nodded in agreement. I reached under the table and grabbed his hand. “It’s going to be ok, Jason...It’s going to be fine.”

After lunch, I called my mom from the classroom phone while Jason waited by my locker. I told our teacher that we were both feeling sick and needed to leave, and she gave us the homework for the class we were missing and happily wished us the best. I felt so angry at her and her cheerfulness. I quickly thanked her and walked out, meeting Jason back in the hall and told him that it would be about 10 minutes before she could come and get us. I couldn’t take this anymore, I had to get him to talk somehow. Jason being quiet like this was disturbing. 

“Jason?” I said cautiously, “You need to tell me what happened. I need to hear it...”

He looked at the ground and grabbed my wrist. He led me into the boys bathroom down the hall and I followed without a word. The bathroom was silent and empty, it was safe to talk here. “What happened?” ...I must’ve sounded so dumb, I already knew what happened. I guess somewhere I was hoping that it was just me overreacting or over thinking things. Part of me was praying that I was wrong. I really wanted to be wrong. 

“My...my parents...” His voice was quiet and shaky. “They...they got violent again but...didn’t want the police to come back.” His eyes stayed glued to the floor. “I got mad and called them crazy...I said that...I was going to call for help again if they didn’t stop.”

“....and?” Oh god please let me be wrong. 

“.....I got smacked....a lot.”

He started to cry into his hands right in front of me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Almost as an impulse, I walked over and held him. He wrapped his arms around my back and squeezed tightly. He quietly sobbed into my shirt as I kept my gaze locked on the back wall behind him. I hugged him tight, and I didn’t want to ever let go. There was a lot of things I really wanted to do in that moment, but the only things I could focus on was how badly I wanted to tell my mom everything about this. After a few minutes, he let go. I put my hands on his shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes. 

“We need to tell someone. We should tell my mom. I know it’s embarrassing, but you can’t keep getting hurt like this...we have to take care of this before it gets any worse.”

His eyes were wide and scared, and he was shaking in my grasp. “We can’t.” His voice croaked out. “If I tell anyone...it’s bad enough I told you!”

I paused. “Is that why they....was it because you told me?”

The look on his face read of guilt and embarrassment, and that's all I needed. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We can tell her together. She’ll call the right people. It’ll be ok.”

“I’m scared...I don’t want them to get taken away...”

“But you can’t stay like this! You can’t let them treat you this way! You’re worth so much more than this! You deserve so much better than this! This is wrong. No one should ever be scared of their mom and dad...it's their job to love and take care of their kids...not hurt them. Please Jason? Please let us help? Let me help?” ...Maybe he saw the heartbreak in my eyes, or heard it in my voice, because with a heavy sigh he agreed to tell my mom with me. 

We ended up explaining the situation in the car during the ride home. My mom got so angry, I’ve never seen this side of her before. She kept her voice down because Jason was in the car, but the look in her eyes were like daggers. She was going to tear them a new one. “I’m taking us all to the police station right now. We need to report this right away.” she said in a booming voice. “Domestic violence? On our street? Not acceptable. We’re filing a report today if it kills me.”

I felt Jason grab my hand and squeeze, I just held it back. His hand was shaking and clammy in mine. He leaned his head on my shoulder and stayed that way for the entire ride there. I didn’t care, I just wanted him to feel safe. Meanwhile, deep inside I had gone numb...For a little while now, I had been secretly imagining the day where Jason would be holding my hand and leaning on me, but this wasn’t want I wanted. Not like this, not out of fear. When we walked in, my mom told the entire story to the man at the desk, and Jason and I were taken into another room while my mom waited outside. The man asked a lot of questions, and Jason answered all of them. I didn’t have much to say, except the things I had picked up on and noticed over the past few weeks. Including what he told me today and yesterday. It was over rather quickly, before we knew it, we were let out and were back in my moms car. Mom had signed a few pieces of paper we didn’t get to read, but came back out and started driving without saying a word. At the first red light she hit, she turned around and asked us if we were ok. Neither of us answered. 

“Jason, sweetie,” she said in a soft yet saddened voice, “The chief said since this wasn’t the first time they’ve been reported for violence and domestic disputes, that they are out of warnings. You’re going to be staying with us for a little while until things are settled out...settled for real this time. Ok?” 

I watched as tears filled Jason’s expressionless eyes, quickly spilling down his face. I sat quietly and looked down at my lap. The rest of the ride was silent. When we got home, I took Jason up to my room while Mom called Dad to tell him that we were going to have a guest for a little while. Greg stopped us at the top of the stairs, but let us pass when he saw how upset we were. When I closed the door, I could hear Greg innocently questioning our mom about why we were so sad. We both sat on my bed without saying a word to each other for a long time. I knew he had gone numb, but I couldn’t have just let him stay in danger...right? I started questioning myself that maybe this was a horrible idea and it was all my fault Jason was going to be losing his parents. 

“This is all my fault..” I heard Jason’s voice stutter out. “I shouldn’t have said anything...they’re going to hate me forever....it’s all my fault...everything’s been my fault.”

Those last few words felt like knives stabbing straight into me. Those words...

“I...I should have been more-“

“Shut up!” I shouted. He jolted upright and stared at me in shock. I didn’t mean to yell at him, but those words...“You....you shouldn’t say stuff like that...” I said, leaning forward and resting my head on my hands. “None of this is your fault. None of it. You didn’t do anything wrong...even if it feels like you did. It’s someone else, making you feel powerless and scared. It’s not your fault...god...it’s not your fault...”

I looked back up at him and he looked away, and after a moment, he turned back and smiled at me. “Everything is fine! I got a good grade on my test from last week!” 

God...I haven’t held on to someone so hard in a very long time. Not since...well...everything. He cried on my shoulder for a long time....and I cried on his. 

“It’s going to be ok, Jason. It’s going to be ok.”


	7. Chapter 7

Jason ended up sleeping in my bed the first night while I took the couch downstairs. It was supposed to be the other way around, but I insisted we switch. Jason had been though enough today, he deserves a good night sleep in a bed that was safe and warm. Sleeping downstairs wasn’t too bad, I had the TV to myself for most of the night at least. I hardly got a second of actual rest though, I was too tense. I found myself constantly looking up the stairs and wanting to go check on him. 

As much as I didn’t want to risk waking him up, something inside kept pulling me up to my bedroom door to make sure he was still ok. Every single time I peeked in, he was fast asleep, clinging to my pillows and blankets like his life depended on it. I checked on him maybe a total of 7 or 8 times in that one night alone. I felt like some kind of creep or something, but I kept having horrible visions of his parents somehow finding their way into my room and attack him again. I know that it’s stupid, but to me it was a real and solid fear, and I had to keep looking in just to settle myself down. 

The next morning, my mom called the school and told them what was going on, and got the ok to let us stay home for the rest of the week. Greg was in charge of getting our classwork from the teacher every day. He took it as some kind of sacred mission of some sort, calling himself “the delivery man of educational necessities” or something along those lines. I found it kind of annoying, but Jason thought it was cute and funny and would play along. I was in no place to shoot down something that was making him smile, even if it was just Greg being Greg. Speaking of Greg, our mom didn’t hide anything from him. She told him everything that was going on, and though he couldn’t understand the severity of the situation he did understand that it wasn’t good. The next time he met Jason downstairs, he gave him a big Greg-sized hug. He really appreciated it. 

Jason also met my step-dad for the first time. They got along fairly well, especially since he was told about everything before he walked in the front door the night before. Much like my mom, he found Jason to be quite the charmer. I mean, let’s be honest here...how could anyone find Jason anything less than charming and sweet? His parents just sucked. As the days passed, there would be times where the two of us would be alone. Mom and dad would head off to work, and Greg would go to school. We did our homework together, and spent every minute with each other. It felt really weird at first, seeing how I’ve never talked so exclusively to someone besides Greg before. As we talked about other things, I would see Jason start to cheer up, and that seemed to make it a little less awkward.  
We would wake up, eat breakfast, and get right to work so we had the rest of the day to just relax and do whatever. The whole week eventually passed with each day becoming easier than the last. We really started to have some fun...and it felt amazing to be able to make him smile again. The images of his broken, depressed, and fearful expressions haunted my dreams at night...so getting him to laugh during the day felt like winning a race or something. I didn’t really find it weird after a while, which I thought for sure I still would. Making him feel better was making me feel better too. 

That Friday, my parents had to work late, and Greg was staying after school for a Jr. Art Club meeting. He had discovered that painting was one of his favorite things to do. Whatever the reasons where, we were alone for longer than usual...deep inside my mind I was really happy about that. I was really starting to enjoy spending time with him uninterrupted. We were sitting on the couch watching TV and eating leftovers when he suddenly put everything down and looked at me.

“Hey Wirt?” 

I was a little startled, even though he had began to talk more and more again each day, it was kind of out of the blue for him to say something while we were doing something like eating. I turned the volume down so I could hear him better. “What is it?”

“Thank you.”

“For what? The leftovers? Thank my mom.” I laughed. 

“No, no. Thank you...for everything.” He smiled a smile that was soft, yet somewhat sad at the same time. “You’re the one who heard me out when no one else did. You’re the one you came to me when I couldn’t move...You’re the one who got me to finally get help for myself, and you were the one that got me to finally believe that I didn’t need to feel guilty for doing so. You held me when I cried, and you let me into your home...even let me sleep in your bed with all your soft blankets...these past few nights were some of the best nights I’ve ever had. No shouting, no nightmares, no locked doors. Just pillows and blankets...”

I tried to think of something to say, but nothing would come out. He was looking at me with such genuine thankfulness I was dumb struck and silent. “It’s not a problem...” was all I got out before averting my gaze back at my plate of food. 

“You even went out of your way to check on me.”

“You know about that?” I was a little embarrassed that he had found out.

“Wirt, the first night was the hardest. I could hardly sleep, though who’s not to say I wasn’t trying to. I heard you come in a bunch of times to make sure I was doing alright. I really appreciate that...I can’t think of many people who would go so far for me.”

I chuckled a little and shrugged. “It’s the least I could do, I was kind of shaken up that night too.” 

“In the car and in the school bathroom. You really helped me feel secure, you know.” 

“oh...well, I thought you just needed-”

“Can you let me finish?....I don’t think you understand how much all of this...how much all of this means to me.”

“It really isn’t an issue, I want you to feel safe. You’re a nice person, it didn’t take me long to learn that once I finally got over myself and gave this whole friendship thing a shot to begin with. You’re great to be around and deserve to be loved just as much as any of the rest of us....that’s all. You deserve to feel care free for once, and not that fake shit either.” I felt my face get a little warm as I continued to speak truthfully. “And if I can do something to help with that, of course I’d do it...you...uh...mean a lot to me. ” 

When I looked back over at him, he looked so touched, tears hanging in the corners of his eyes. He quickly wiped them away before they got a chance to fall. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me Wirt.” His smile grew bigger. “You mean a lot to me too!”

I blinked at him, my heart starting to beat faster with every second. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t want it to stop. I had felt so much lighter finally saying those words to him, and then to hear them back made me feel so happy. After awkwardly staring at each other for a few seconds, Jason blinked and glanced away. His face, to my shock, had started to flush a little.

“Um...Wirt?” He asked.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think we could hold hands again? This time without me being afraid?” 

I gulped and began to feel a little flustered. “S-Sure...if you want to.”  
“You don’t mind do you?”

“N-No, not at all...I’d...uh...like that too...”

So we held hands for a little while, just to see what it felt like. I think the both of us were feeling the same kind of curious confusion at the moment, and needed to try something small out first. His hand felt so warm and relaxed, it was almost calming. I can see why holding mine made him feel safer back in the car. I found myself stroking the top of his hand with my thumb, resulting in a bit of a tighter squeeze from him. We glanced back at each other and started to laugh a little. 

“This is kind of nice.” He said while kicking his legs back and forth off the side of the couch. 

“Yeah...” I said after a while, “It is isn’t it.”

“Thank you, Wirt.”

“No problem.” 

We held hands on and off for the rest of the day.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ((Thanks for all the positive feedback guys! It really made my day! ok now back to the story))

When the time came around when my folks finally came home, it was about 8 o’clock and everyone had a lot to say. My Step dad insisted that we all still have dinner together, and Jason and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that we had already eaten. After talking around the table for almost an hour, everyone was heading off into their own directions again. Mom went upstairs to her room to read some magazine she picked up, Greg sat in the family room to watch TV, and my Step-dad started cleaning up the dishes. We decided to give him a hand since we helped make the mess....well, technically it was Jason who offered to help, I just tagged along. 

“It’s the least I could do, you letting me stay here and all.” He said matter-of-factly when he asked him why he was so persistent. Then he turned around and gave me this ‘you-should-help-too-get-over-here’ look, so I just went along with it...At least with the 3 of us pitching in it only took a few minutes. 

“I like this friend of yours!” Dad said in a gleeful tone, “He gets you to do things around the house!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I said sarcastically, “Very funny.”

We started talking half way up the stairs, as per usual. “Your step-dad is really nice Wirt.” Jason smiled, “The way I heard you talk about him in school sometimes made it sound like he was really harsh or something.”

“Not really...But he can get annoying. He jokes all the time, and I mean ALL the time. You can really tell that he’s biologically related to Greg, let’s just put it that way.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” 

“Well no, I guess not.”

When we entered my room, I took the bed and Jason took my desk just like before. As soon as he sat down, he got back up and pulled out the poetry collection he was reading before. He wasn’t reading it, just kind of flipping through it and smelling the pages. I noticed that he does this a lot with books, no matter where they’ve been or who they belonged to. It was kind of cute to be honest, I never found books to be very smelly. 

After a few minutes of silence, he spoke up. “Hey Wirt?” he asked, his voice sounding a little low like he was deep in thought about something. 

“What?”

“What was your old dad like? The dad you had before the other guy came along.”

Well this just got a million times more awkward in a span of less than 5 seconds. I sat up and sighed, ringing my hand through my hair a little as I looked at the ceiling. “That’s a tough one, Jason...dang.”

He got a look of concerned-empathy on his face. “He wasn’t like mine, was he?”

“Well, compared to yours he’s a saint. Either way though, I was never really fond of him when I was younger. I mean, I was younger than Greg when he was around so most of it’s hard to remember, but the stuff that did stick never really went away.”

In that moment it kind of hit me how long it had been since I talked about my biological father to anyone. My mom had made some sort of unspoken house rule not to talk about him, and I followed it from the time my Step dad first came into the picture. It felt odd talking about him out loud, but I had no problem with it. I guess I hadn’t really realized how long I was waiting to be able to let some of this out. Dang...how long has this been building up? 

“He was nothing compared to how your dad was that’s for sure, but from what I remember he wasn’t that nice of a guy. I remember I would come home from school to see him sitting in the big chair in the living room while mom would be off in the kitchen looking horribly depressed. I think they argued all the time when I wasn’t around, but I never saw any of it. He was just really bossy, rude, and not fun to be around. However, from my childish perspective, I didn’t hate him because of any of that, I hated him because he ignored me a lot. The only way he would spend any time with me at all was if my mom forced him to. He always made it seem like spending time with me was more of a chore than anything else.” 

I don’t know what happened, but the vault had opened. I started just going on and on and on with things about my dad. This had been building up for a while, and I figured Jason was only asking because he needed some kind of point of commiseration. When I looked over at him, he was just sitting quietly and listening. It felt kind of nice actually, liberating almost. I wonder if this is what he was feeling when he opened up to me the first time....Just being able to talk it all out with someone sitting there listening to you. I continued. 

“He always made me feel like I was nothing but a bother to him, and even now to this day I question why. What did I ever do besides just want to spend time with him? Isn’t that what kids are supposed to do? Isn’t that a part of the whole deal of having a family?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Jason said with a bit of an empathetic grin on his face. “I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories or anything, it was just something that popped in my head while I was helping downstairs.”

“It’s alright, I guess I’ve been wanting to talk about him for a while anyways....though I’m not gonna’ lie, I feel kind of guilty talking to you of all people about it. You had it way worse.”

“It’s not a contest, I was just curious. Also, just because he wasn’t abusive doesn’t mean he wasn’t a crappy dad. It sounds like he was really neglectful to both you and your mom.”

I fell silent for a brief moment because I had gone deep into thought. Jason continued talking. 

“If someone becomes a parent and then decides to be a dick to his family, it’s not the families fault, and it’s definitely not any fault of the kid they had. Like you said, you were just a little kid, so I highly doubt you were the reason things didn’t work out. For all we know they could’ve not been getting along for a while and you just got stuck in the middle. It sucks, but rest assured it wasn’t your fault.”

“Do you really mean that?” 

“Of course! Sounds like it would make sense anyways, right?”

“Well, yeah, but I mean...just the other day I had to keep telling you that exact same thing over and over again, and you still didn’t believe me.”

Jason smirked a little and leaned back in the chair. “Guess I’m a little bit of a hypocrite huh?”

“Just a little....but hey, thanks for hearing me out, I kinda feel a little better now that I got some of that in the open.” 

“No problem....and also, your biological dad has no idea what he’s missing. You’re really great, and if he couldn’t see that early on, he doesn’t even deserve your time.”

He said that last part in a really sassy tone, and it made me laugh. “It’s getting late, we should go to bed soon.”

“This early on a Friday night?” he said, sounding all whiny and bummed out. 

I was already getting snuggled into my bed. “Jason, you know we’ve had a really long week. Let’s just try to get some sleep now and then do some fun stuff over the weekend. How’s that?”

“So...does that mean I take the couch this time?” 

Crap. My brain was so sidetracked at the moment that I defaulted to autopilot and just jumped into bed forgetting that I was letting Jason sleep up here. I sat up. “Uh, no. That’s ok, sorry my mind was somewhere else. I’ll head downstairs.”

“...You uh...don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“You want to sleep on the couch?” 

“I was more of thinking...I mean, maybe if you didn’t mind...”

Holy shit he wants to cuddle with me. When the realization hit me I must’ve made a weird face because he immediately brushed it off and was nervously heading to the door with a quick, “Forget I said anything!” 

“Wait!” I snapped, and he stopped. “If uh, you just want to...I dunno’ snuggle or something...that’s ok. As long as you’re ok with it.” I felt kind of stupid saying that last part since it was his idea in the first place. He smiled anyways though and walked back over.

“So...how are we gonna’ do this?” he asked.

“I don’t know...just get in I guess?” 

So that’s just what he did. He just got in and sort of fit himself against me. It’s a good thing he was facing the other way because I started blushing something awful. Not just because it was him, but because I hadn’t really ever gotten the chance to snuggle with anyone before. I put my arm around him almost instinctively and pulled him closer, and he adjusted his position accordingly. It didn’t take us very long to get comfortable, and before I knew it we were spooning. I thought it was going to get really awkward, but it didn’t....It actually felt really nice. 

....shit.


	9. Chapter 9

When we woke up the next morning, we agreed that no one needed to know what happened last night. We knew it wasn’t really a big deal, but we still decided to keep our little snuggle-session a secret for now. We both woke up feeling really refreshed, and Jason mentioned that it was one of the best night sleep he’s had in a long time. I could only imagine why. When you’re stuck living with a dysfunctional family your whole life and then one night you get to fall asleep in someones arms, it’s no wonder he slept so well. If I was going to be honest with myself I’d have to admit that I was glad that I was the person he chose to do that with. 

As we both got dressed, the house was unusually quiet, probably because everyone else was still sleeping if I had to guess. Anyways, we spent most of this time laughing because Jason ran out of clean clothes so he had to borrow some of mine. It was pretty funny, everything was a little on the loose side because he was so much shorter than me. He had to roll up the sleeves and wear a belt. He looked adorable. At that moment he happened to look over at me the same time I was checking him out. 

“What’s up Wirt?” He said in a joking tone of voice, “Like what you see?”

“Don’t read too much into it.” I said while zipping up my hoodie. “I just think it’s funny how baggy they are on you, that’s all. I guess it never hit me how short you really are.”

“Very funny.” We were both grinning ear to ear. “So Wirt, about last night...”

“Can it, Funderburker.”

“What? I was just gonna’ say that you’re a really great cuddler, that's all.”

“Oh...uh, you too.” 

...Real smooth, Wirt. Real smooth.

After a short pause we were laughing again, and continued quietly snickering to ourselves like little school girls as we snuck down the hall and to the stairs. We may have been in a good mood this morning, but we still didn’t want to wake anyone up. We could still hear my stepdad snoring a few doors down. After we made it past the stairs, we walked into the kitchen to get some breakfast. To our surprise we found my mom sitting there reading a book. When she noticed us standing there, she put her book down and had a sad look on her face....this couldn’t be good. 

“Oh, good...you both are up. I was just about to come and get you.”

“What’s wrong mom?” I asked, “Is everything ok?” 

She sighed heavily and stood up. “Boys, I got a phone call from the police station this morning.” 

Both of our blood ran cold. She hadn’t even said anything yet, but Jason was already looking terrified. I bit the inside of my lip, the tone of voice she had going along with her expression meant that this could only be bad news....just more of what we needed. 

“Jason, sweetheart, the police are planning on bringing them to court. That would mean you would have to be there to explain what's been going on, for how long, details like that. They’re already looking at facing time not just for what happened the other night, or the past two weeks for that matter, but also for apparently skipping out on taxes for a while.”

“I can’t go to court!” Jason snapped in a panic, “Why do I need to be there! I don’t want to go to court! I can’t speak out against my parents, I can’t do that! I just cant!”

“Jason, honey, I’m not finished yet....apparently they haven’t been paying off the house for a while now...so the bank is foreclosing the property. They’ve been sending letters and calling them for weeks now, and they’re just legally obligated to step in at this point.”

My jaw dropped. I stood there completely stunned at what I just heard. Jason started to hyperventilate. 

“They’re taking my house too!?” Jason cried, “Oh my god what am I going to do!? My mom and dad are going to jail AND my house is getting taken away!? Oh my god what the fuck am I going to do!? What the FUCK am I going to do!?”

“Jason, calm down.” My mom said, walking over and putting her hands on his shoulders. “Your parents are still in holding and we don’t have a final court date yet. As for your house? You don’t need to worry about it too much. I’ve already arranged for all of the furniture to be put into a storage unit right across town, not that far from here. As for you, You’ll just be staying with us for a little longer than we though, ok? They tried getting ahold of a few of your other relatives, but...Well, they didn’t know you didn’t really have any other relatives.”

My mind had gone blank, and she continued to talk.

“Now, you have a choice to make here...I talked it over with the department and they suggested that a ‘close friend’ should take custody of you for a while, since it appears that both of your parents are unfit to take care of you. We could easily take you in for a while, but that’s another reason you would have to come to court with us. Everything needs to be brought up so we can work things out. Otherwise if you don’t want to stay here, you could talk to some of your other friends or you could be put into a group or foster home somewhere.”

Jason was shaking, tears were silently falling down his face as he stared back at my mother like a deer staring into a hunters headlight. It looked like he was looking for something to say, but just couldn’t get the words out. The only response he could give was a shaky nod of his head. 

“Something we can do today, if you want, is go back to your house and bring some of your personal belongings here...nothing big unfortunately, but any books, clothing, whatever else, you name it. There’s a spare room down in the basement that my husband and I will start clearing out so you can keep your stuff there...Maybe we can even find a way to bring your bed over and assemble it downstairs. That way you’ll have your own room here for however long you need to stay for...because you’re a great kid, Jason. We don’t want to see you end up in some home somewhere anyways.”

Jason wiped his eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded again. He still wasn’t talking.

“If we take legal custody of you, all that would mean is that you’d be staying with us. There’s no adoption involved or anything like that, if that was something you were worried about. It’s just a few pieces of paper to fill out, but again, it’s all up to you. If you want to go somewhere else, that’s fine. I just wanted you to know that when it all comes down to it, you will have some place to stay. We’re not going to let you be out on the streets.”

“Thank you.” He stuttered out, “I-I...Uh, when will we be getting my stuff?”

“Probably later today, maybe in the afternoon....Are you ok? I know that was a lot to lay on you all at once, but it’s important for you to know what’s going on...and sadly, weather or not your parents were reported, the situation with your house was going to happen either way.” 

“I...I didn’t know they weren’t paying bills...”

“It’s not your responsibility to keep track of those things, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’ll ask again, are you ok? How are you feeling? This is some really heavy stuff to deal with, especially at your age. I don’t want you holding anything in.” 

“N-No, I’m fine...really...I just...I need to think for a little bit if that’s ok.”

“That’s alright...take your time. Just be sure to let me know if you need anything, ok? I’ll come get you when it’s time for lunch.”

“Yeah...no problem.”

She gave him a big hug, and brushed her fingers through his hair. “I need to make a few more phone calls now, but I’ll be right here. I don’t have any other plans today.”

That was the end of that, and I was in total shock. Jason had pushed his way past me and stormed outside, slamming the door behind him. My mom looked through the window by the sink to make sure he didn’t go very far. I walked over to look too, and he was just sitting on the front porch steps. His arms were folded up on his knees and his head was down. 

“You should go out there and sit with him.” Mom said after a short while. 

“I will...but, Mom? Is all of that stuff you said true?” I just couldn’t wrap my head around how fast all of this was happening. 

“Yep...every word of it...It’s so sad isn’t it? It’s almost amazing how fast someone’s life can just fall apart. But remember, we don’t know how long this has been going on for. Only Jason has the answer to that question. For all we know, this could have been building up for years and years.”

“Yeah...that’s what he made it sound like before...but he never went into any details to me about it. When he was talking about the past, he kept things really vague.”

“I guess that gives us our answers, now doesn’t it.”

I looked at the ground. “I guess it sort of does...maybe.” 

“Go outside and sit with him, I need to make those calls and wake up your father.”

“Ok...”

I went into the fridge and grabbed us two bottles of water before I went outside. I quietly sat down next to him, putting the bottles down behind us. I put my hand on his shoulder and he looked up at me. He had really dark circles under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in days...which was painfully ironic given that last night we were both sleeping like babies. 

“Jason...” I said quietly, “I don’t know what to say...I really don’t. I’m so sorry. I mean it...I’m really, really, sorry.”

He didn’t say anything at first, just kind of stared out in the direction of where his house was. “I’m losing everything. Literally everything. Why is this happening? Why is it all just happening right now?”

“I...I don’t know.” 

“I should have never told you anything!” He suddenly snapped at me. 

“Woah, hold on a second! What are you talking about?” 

He stood up and raised his voice. “If I never told you all that shit the other night, I would have never gotten my ass kicked, and you would have never needed to convince me to tell your mom, and none of this would be happening!”

I stood up too. “That’s not true and you know it! It’s all just crazy bad timing! You heard what my mom said! They were going to take your house anyways! Then you would just be stuck on the streets with your shitty parents!” 

He was trembling. He looked so broken, like he was stuck between constant shifts of anger and depression. 

“Jason...we’re not going to let you be on the streets...and I sure as hell don’t want you to end up in some crappy foster home...”

“What difference does it make! I’m still loosing both my house and my parents all in the same week!” 

“At least you'll be fostering with someone you already know...and you’ve already been sort of doing that all week anyways.”

He sat back down, all the anger draining from his face. I sat down next to him and handed him one of the water bottles I grabbed from inside. He opened it and started to drink...I did the same with mine. 

“I really...really don’t want to go to court, Wirt.” He mumbled, staring out into space. 

“I know, Jason. I know.”


	10. Chapter 10

Later that day, after we were all finished eating lunch, my stepdad drove us all up to the corner where Jason’s house was. While we were approaching the front porch, Jason was nervously fumbling for his house keys, his eyes locking on the pieces of paper that were taped to the door. “Ignore them, they’re just pieces of paper.” I said sternly. “Don’t worry about them.” I seemed to have reassured him a little bit, but not really...Not that I expected anything to make him feel better at this point. When he finally found his keys and opened the door, we were all stunned by what was inside. Jason walked right in without a second thought, but my parents and I just stood in the doorway for a solid few seconds before going in. 

Everything was a mess, there were pieces of broken glass on the floor and most of the furniture was overturned. The drawers were pulled out of the end tabled and papers were scattered all around everything, it was nothing less of a complete and total fucking mess. I ran my hand through my hair in disbelief. My mom looked like she was starting to choke up, while my stepdad just had this uncomfortable expression on his face. Jason noticed that we weren’t moving much, so he rejoined us in the kitchen. 

“Um...I didn’t get to clean this up yet...Sorry about that. Normally what ends up happening is after they’re done doing whatever, they go into their room or leave or something, and then I straighten things up. Uh, last time didn’t really go that well so...You know what? Let’s just go to my room now. I kind of just want to get this done and over with if you all don’t mind.” 

We followed him upstairs to where his room was, he was fumbling for a key for here too. At least the second floor was way cleaner than downstairs. I could hear my parents whispering to each other behind us, and judging by the frustrated look on Jason’s face, he could hear too. When he finally got the door open, we all fit into his room and set the empty boxes down. 

“So...this is your room? It’s pretty cool.” I said, trying to lighten up the mood a bit. 

“Yeah, or at least it WAS my room. Too bad it’s not anymore.” 

He started pulling clothing out of the dresser that stood next to his bed while my mom started to strip and pack away the sheets and pillows. My stepdad went outside to get the car started, and I was helping pack up his books from off the shelves that were above his desk. While doing so, I noticed that there was a lot of dents on the outer rim that faced against the wall, also matching scratch marks that were all over the floor that led from the door back to the desk’s legs. By the looks of things, he must’ve frantically moved this over to block the door at some point... My stomach hurt. I didn’t say anything, I just finished helping pack things up. 

It didn’t take long to clear his room out, only a little over an hour to be exact. Almost everything just consisted of clothing or books. I looked out the window to see Mom putting the boxes in the back while dad started fishing through his toolbox. He was going to take the bed apart so we could take that too. I looked back over at Jason, who was now just quietly sitting on the bare mattress. I sat myself down next to him, and he leaned his head on my shoulder. I rested the side of my head on his and stared out the door and down the hall. We sat in silence as my parents rustled with the boxes and the tools outside. I felt him grab my hand and hold on weakly. I held it back and kissed him reassuringly on his cheek.

Oops. 

Jason let go of my hand and quickly scooted away from me, staring at me with eyes as wide as dinner plates. I stupidly sat there in the same amount of what can only describe as an ‘oh shit’ feeling. 

“Uh, Wirt? You just kissed me.” He said, still looking rather startled. 

“I....Holy shit I did didn’t I?” I was just as startled as him. I couldn’t explain why I kissed him, it just sort of happened. I think in that moment I defaulted to when I’d be comforting Greg after a nightmare or something. Greg always felt better if I gave him a little kiss on the forehead or something little-kid like that. Maybe that was it? Yeah....maybe that was it. I tried to explain despite myself. 

“S-Sorry! I just kind of....Well that's how I would make Greg feel better when he’d be upset or something...He’s such a little dork, he’s almost 10 and still likes getting head-kisses form his older brother-“ Just then my parents re-entered the room and the both of us practically jumped up out of our skin. 

We left them to take apart the bed, seeing how we would’ve just gotten in the way at that point. So we walked outside and stood in the driveway by the garage. I kept my hands in my pocket and kept glancing around the neighborhood....It was really nice outside today. The sun was bright in the sky and it wasn’t too hot, but not too cold either. There was a breeze of wind that would pick up every so often and would blow the smell of fresh-cut lawn from the other houses across the street and bring it to you. It was a really beautiful spring day outside, I just wish that we were standing out here under better circumstances so we could actually enjoy it. I glanced over at Jason who was leaning against the passenger side of the car, also seemingly staring out into space too. I walked over. 

“How you doing there, buddy? Everything ok?” 

“I don’t know...I think I’m still numb to all of this. I’m not sure if I feel sad or anything anymore...I feel kind of empty, like I still can’t believe that after we drive away, I can’t get back in this house. I’ll never get off the school bus and walk over here. I’ll never go up those stairs and lay on my bed and look at my walls...everything just became so different so fast...It’s like I don’t even have time to feel anything about it.”

“That’s understandable,” I said, leaning next to him, “Hell, I’m not even the one it’s happening to and I don’t even know what to feel.”

“Well, it’s kind of happening to you too, I’m moving into your house for crying out loud. That’s got to be weird for your family. Not that I plan on making a huge racket or anything...”

“No, you’re fine...my family wouldn’t have offered if we weren’t in a good place for it, and I mean, you’ve already been staying here the past week to begin with.”

“That’s true, but now I’ll be in your house for who knows how long.” 

“It’ll be weird at first, take some getting used to, but it’ll be like we’re brothers or something.”

“No!” He suddenly snapped at me, “Not like brothers! I don’t want to be your brother!”

I was startled and confused. “Wow...ok then, I was just making a comparison or something. My mom even said this wasn’t adoption or anything so you wouldn’t be my brother but just someone staying with us for a while, like a roommate or a boarder...dang.” 

“Oh...right...sorry.”

“Why did that bother you so much? The whole brother metaphor I mean.”

“.....I just really don’t want to think of us as brothers, that’s all.”

“Why?”

“....well-”

“We’re all finished here!” My dad’s voice exploded out from the front door, instantly interrupting our conversation. “Open the back will you?”

We hurried over and helped him put the pieces of Jason’s bed into the back of the car on top of the boxes. By that point, there was only room for 2 people to sit in the car, so Jason and I agreed to just walk home while they drove the stuff back to the house...It was only a block away after all. As we were walking, I asked again.

“Why did that upset you so much? I mean, you go really defensive.”

“Do you really want to know?” He asked, looking a little nervous. 

“If you’re willing to tell me, yeah.”

“Well...If we were hypothetically suddenly brothers...we couldn’t...”

“Couldn’t what?”

“Like...hold hands and stuff...or cuddle like we did last night...or, whatever.”

I blinked, slowly beginning to realize what he was getting at. I stopped walking and looked at him. “Jason? are you implying what I think you’re implying?” I felt a knot growing tighter inside my throat as I spoke. 

He didn’t look at me, but he nodded his head slightly and blushed a little. “...Holy shit...”

“Please don’t freak out!” He snapped in a near begging tone, “I didn’t want you to find out but It just kind of happened! Oh man please don’t let this ruin anything! I swear, I’m not going to do anything or say anything or-”

“Holy shit, you like me!?” My eyes were wide. “You seriously like me? Like, LIKE me like me?”  
“...maybe.” he said looking at the ground as he walked. “Ok maybe a little more than maybe.”

Once again, I was at a lose for words, except this time wasn’t because of any horrible reasons. I found myself starting to smile and eventually start chuckling under my breath. Jason turned around when I started laughing. 

“What’s so funny?” He asked, still sounding embarrassed. 

“It’s funny because I sort of like you too!” I laughed, “Isn’t that just the funniest thing? I just never would have thought in a thousand years-” 

“You like me too?” 

“Jason, if I didn’t at least like-like you a little bit, I wouldn’t have spent an entire day holding hands with you or a whole night comfortably snuggling with you.” 

“...So...you really like me?” 

“....Yeah. Looks like I do...but hey, let’s talk about it later ok? When we’re not standing in the middle of the sidewalk.”

The rest of the walk was quiet, but at least we were both smiling this time.


	11. Chapter 11

Jason and I spent the rest of the day keeping an eye on Greg while my parents were getting the basement ready to move into. The three of us played video games, drew pictures, and listened to Greg’s favorite music. He was really happy to have us both around to hang out with, since we were ‘the cool kids’ according to him. It was an adorably flattering thing to hear. We still didn’t go into a lot of details with Greg about what was happening, but we did have to explain a few things when mom and dad came back with boxes full of Jason’s personal belongings. When they told him that he was basically moving in with us, he was so excited he wouldn’t let go of Jason for almost 20 minutes. While that was happening, I went into the kitchen to get us all something to drink, and the two of them were just playing around on the floor. Greg had apparently tackled Jason from behind and they were play-wrestling now. This was so cute, it almost made me forget that all of this wasn’t exactly ever a good thing.

“Ok you two, break it up. I brought us some age appropriate drinks!” 

* * * 

It was around 8:00 at night when my finally mom came up to tell us that everything was set up downstairs. Greg had since then gone to bed, and Jason and I were relaxing in my room at that time. We both followed her to the basement, which to my surprise was the cleanest I’ve ever seen it. The old storage room near the washing machine is where they said they set everything up. When Jason turned on the light, the room was set up in a ver similar style that his old bedroom had been. My parents were excited to show him how they fixed everything up. At first he stood there quietly, looking rather sad. He tucked his hands in his pockets and forced a smile on his face. “It turned out great!” he said, “I can’t thank you enough...”

I looked over at him suspiciously, but my parents believed him and happily went back upstairs. “What’s wrong Jason, you look upset.”

“It’s not that I’m not impressed or anything, I’m really flattered that they put so much effort into moving me in, but...”

“But what?”

“It’s just that...It's set up exactly like my other room was...it’s bothering me.”

This sort of confused me due to the fact that the only piece of furniture from his room that was down here was his bed. Everything else was stuff we already had lying around in the basement beforehand. He had my mom’s old dresser and my stepdad’s old desk, but either way I couldn’t really see how it looked anything like his old room. However, if he was uncomfortable because he could see something I couldn’t, I still wanted to help.

“Well then, we can just move things around! That’s not a problem.”

He smiled. “Thank you.”

So we rearranged everything, moved the old desk where his bed used to be, his bed where the dresser was, and then the dresser back over to where the desk had been. It didn’t take long at all, but it sure made Jason feel a lot better. He didn’t say anything, but you could read it all on his face. We sat on his bed, which had also just gotten clean sheets and blankets on it. Jason looked happy enough, until his smile started to fade and he looked depressed again. 

“...This really is all happening, isn’t it?”

I sighed and put my arm around his shoulders. “Yeah, it is.” 

We sat like that for a while, and eventually we both laid down and stared up at the ceiling. “Thanks for helping me, Wirt.” he said quietly, “I still don’t know how to thank you enough for everything...I have no idea where I’d be right now if it wasn’t for you and your family just taking me in out of seemingly nowhere. It’s like you said before, if the bank was going to take my house regardless of weather or not my parents were there, God...I don’t want to think about what might have been going on right now.” 

“Well, even if we couldn’t take you in, you can bet your ass that we would’ve found a good place for you to stay.”

“Either way, I’m not going to be any trouble. I’ll be the best boarder in the entire world! I’ll help clean things up, I’ll babysit Greg if you all need to go out, I’ll-"

“Jason stop. You don’t need to prove that you’re worth keeping here. My family likes you just the way you are now, they’ve even said it themselves more than enough times.”

“Even though I’ve sort of been crying like a baby almost everyday?”

I gave him a sort of I-can’t-believe-you-even-think-that-is-an-issue look. “It’s perfectly ok to cry. You got your ass kicked by your own parents and then lost them and your house all over the course of a single week...I’d be crying too. Anyone would be.”

“...that means a lot...thank you.”

I rolled over so I was actually facing him, and it sort of startled us both because suddenly my face was really close to his. This was just a standard twin sized bed after all. In the moment I forgot what I was going to originally say, but that was only because he was looking straight into my eyes. We both started getting flustered. 

“I...uh...” Neither of us tried moving away yet. “As I was saying...you’re worth so much more than what your parents probably made you feel like. You’re wonderful, strong, and...really....r-really...” 

Something was starting to overcome me as those last few words slowly dragged out. As I had continued to talk, his eyes became relaxed and almost expectant. Maybe it was that comfortable dazed look he was giving me that was slowly throwing me off. As if for those few seconds, there was something he wanted from me...I found myself reaching up and brushing some of the hair out of his face.

“Wirt...?” 

Somehow, in spite of being in the middle of a conversation, everything had stopped. Jason and I stared at each other silently, a small amount of blush starting to flood our faces. Something happened in that moment, where we reached some level of poorly timed intimacy we didn’t plan on. He reached up and put his hand on the back of my neck, and I pulled him closer. I couldn’t begin to explain how I was feeling, but if I had to, I’d say it was along the lines of being mildly embarrassed but mostly relaxed. We both slowly and cautiously started to lean in, closing our eyes, and without any other words...we started kissing. It was nothing too intense, given that we’re both seriously inexperienced. Yet it was what it was, and I was glad it could be just that. It was gentle and pressure-less, wonderfully perfect for the time being. I ran my hand gently up his back while he put his arms around me and squeezed. 

We kissed for maybe about 10 or 20 more seconds before pulling away and smiling like idiots. Jason’s whole face was bright red, as were the tips of his ears. He kept his hands on my shoulders and giggled like the embarrassed little nerd he was, then just hugged me. I hugged him back, and we both continued to laugh quietly to ourselves. 

“I can’t believe we just did that.” I said, still chuckling, “Oh my god, that was my first kiss!”

“Y-Yeah, mine too!” Jason responded, letting go of me a sitting up. “That was...unexpected, but really nice though! I enjoyed it...”

I sat up too. “Yeah, sorry about that...I don’t really know what I was thinking but, I’m glad I went with it.” 

“Oh my gosh Wirt your face is so red!”

“You’re one to talk!” 

“Hey, you’re the one who kissed me so I don’t wanna’ hear it!” 

I swear in that moment we both became stupid little girls. We couldn’t stop teasing and laughing at each other and poking fun at how red we were. We had gotten sort of loud in our banter and we heard my mom’s voice call down, “What’s so funny down there?” in that curious motherly voice of hers. We quickly shut up and continued to giggle quietly to ourselves. 

A little while later, we set up the pillows against the bed frame, propped ourselves up comfortably, and sat there holding hands. I still couldn’t believe I kissed him like that, or how embarrassingly giddy I felt afterwords. When I glanced back over at Jason, he was staring off into space, still looking as content as before. This made me feel a little better myself, since he’d been so depressed because of everything going on. If one kiss like that was enough to bring him out of that slump, he must REALLY like me....

“Hey, Jason?” I asked.

“Huh? What is it?”

“If you don’t mind me asking...when did you start liking me?” 

“Oh....I think it was around the beginning of the semester last year. When we didn’t know each other until the teacher paired us up together for that one math project? The one with all the graphs? I think it was around then.”

“Holy shit, all the way back in September?”

“Yeah.” 

“But what about the week before halloween? That entire week you were going after Sara, weren’t you?”

“Not really. I was just hanging out with her because she was one of my only friends at the time. Of course I’d be with her a lot. I invited her to the party because I wasn’t sure if anyone else was even going to show up.”

“You tried to hold hands with her! I saw you!” 

He gave me a funny look. “Did you also happen to notice that I held hands with like 4 other people that same evening? I just wanted to hold hands with someone because I was having a bad day up until that point. I was never really interested in Sara that way.”

“How come I never caught on to any of this? You think I would’ve noticed these things myself.”

“Wirt, no offense, but a few months ago you weren’t very observant. I mean, everyone in the entire class knew you had a crush on her. That’s also the main reason why I kept to myself about any of my feelings towards you. You were obviously-well...I’d just assumed you were heterosexual. So I never really bothered to tell anyone.”

I hadn’t really given it that much thought...I did really like Sara, and I am attracted to girls...there’s not doubt in my mind about that, but then here’s Jason. Who I’m also genuinely attracted to.

“I still like girls,” I said honestly, “-but I also really like you too. Actually, I think you’re the only boy I’ve ever felt this kind of attraction to...so if we’re going for labels here I guess I would be sort of bisexual....but anyways, weren’t there ever any girls you would get crushes on?”

“Actually,” Jason said, looking a little nervous as he continued to speak, “I sort of...don’t find girls all that interesting that way. I mean, I’m friends with a few of them and they’re great people, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a crush on one. However...boys are different. Getting a crush on you didn’t feel like anything out of the ordinary for me.”

“So you’re just gay?”

“If we’re going for labels here, than yeah I am....I’m gay. Is that ok?”

“Jason, I just made out with you on your bed. Obviously I’m pretty fine with it. Are you ok with the fact that I’m Bi?”

“Totally!” 

“So then there’s no problem here.” 

“This, uh...leads me to another question...” Jason said as he let go of my hand and started playing with his fingers. Something I’ve picked up about him is that he has a lot of quirks, and this was one of them. This meant that whatever it was he was about to ask me, he was really nervous about. 

“Are we dating now?”

Oh my god were we? I had no idea. With everything that’s been going on I hadn’t thought about that. Yes, we would cuddle, hold hands, hug constantly, and now we just kissed and all that, but that doesn’t mean that we’re....? Oh wait...yes it does. I started to laugh nervously. 

“I guess we could be, if you wanted to. We could officially be boyfriends if you want.”

“I’d love to, but how would this work? Are we going to tell anyone? Are we keeping it a secret?”

“Shit...I don’t know. My parents don’t know anything about me like that and I’m not sure how the school would handle it...”

“Maybe it’s best we keep it to ourselves? Or at least only tell people we really trust?”

“That sounds like a plan...let’s go with that.” 

He smiled at me before coming in for another hug. “Thank you Wirt, this makes me so happy.”

“Yeah...me too.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ((Sorry for the wait guys! I'm back into the swing of being pounded with loads of school work, so it's looking like I'll only be able to update this once a week or so. Thanks for understanding! - Ally))
> 
> ((Also, TW for this chapter - more descriptions of domestic violence))

That Monday morning, we got ready for school together for the first time. It was interesting to see his morning routine, which by the way was anything but dignified. By the time I was fully dressed and getting ready to eat at the table, he just came stumbling up the stairs in his pajamas carrying his clothes in his arms while lazily dragging himself up to the shower. It was hilarious. I mean, I always wake up an hour early to get ready because I’m so paranoid that I’ll sleep in and miss the bus or something, but Jason was clearly on a different schedule. A few minutes later he came downstairs, his hair still wet. I almost chocked on my cereal when he sat down. His hair when wet laid completely flat against his head and was down to his shoulders. 

“Aren’t you going to blow-dry that or something?” I asked.

“Nah, there’s enough time before now and when the bus shows up. It’ll dry on its own”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with your hair down before. Looks cute.”

“Not my fault, it does its own thing most of the time. By the time it’s all dry it just frizzes up and poofs or something. I don’t really do anything to it to get it the way it normally is.”

“Dang. I guess I had this image in my head of you getting up at ungodly hours with hairspray getting it to look right.”

“Nope. What’s for breakfast?” 

We decided to make eggs and ham. Even though I already had cereal, Jason wanted eggs and also said it would be good for Greg too. They’d be finished by the time he’d be awake. It only took a few minute before Greg came running down the stairs all excited. We all sat down and ate before Greg left to go watch a few cartoons before his bus would come. I looked across the table at Jason, who looked like there was something on his mind. When I asked him what he was thinking about, he just shrugged. That was a little unusual, at least compared to how he’s been basically an open book to me over the past week. I decided to look a little more into it, and when he finally answered he simply said,

“I’m switching into school mode, that’s all.”

He seemed perfectly fine with it, but it bothered me. He really does just shut everything inside and put on a face at school...he literally just confirmed it. I frowned.

“Jason, people are going to be asking questions. We haven’t been in school in a week and I’m pretty sure a few people have caught on to the little papers on your front door by now. Someone probably saw us packing your things into my stepdad’s car. Have you given any thought of what you’re going to say?”

“I’m not really sure....something really vague probably. Something like ‘yeah I moved’ or something.”

“That’s it? That’s all your going to say?”

“To everyone else if they ask, if it’s someone like Sara or something....I might say a little more than that. I’m sure she must worried about us by now.”

“Do you...do you want to tell Sara about how we’re sort of...seeing each other now?”

Jason leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. “I think, that would be up to you actually. I already came out to her a while back, but if you still want to stay in the closet I can respect that....That and I think telling her that we’re sort of dating now after pounding her with how my parents beat the shit out of me and then got arrested so I had to move in with you because my house is also being taken away, might be a little much all at once. Let’s just wait and see?”

“Yeah, let’s just wait and see, and we should hurry things up a little, the bus is going to be here in about 5 minutes. Also, here’s some money for lunch. I know you normally pack one but we sort of just talked the entire morning.”

“Thanks.”

We grabbed our backpacks, zipped up our hoodies, and walked outside. Waiting out on the corner was a little weird this time, since we’ve never waited together before...Hell, when was the last time Jason took the bus at all? I glanced over to make sure he was still ok. He looked a little nervous, but anyone would be. The bus came driving up the street towards us, and we got on without a single word. We sat in the first open seat we could find, which happened to be up in the front. We instantly heard a few murmurs coming from behind us. Things about ‘they were at the same stop, did you see the papers on his door? Is he homeless now? No he’s still here...’

“Don’t pay them any mind” I whispered over to Jason, who was looking increasingly annoyed with the chatter. “They’re just looking for gossip, they don’t really care.”

When we arrived at school, nothing was too eventful. A few people looked at us funny, and a handful of people were whispering in their little groups while glancing over at us, but nothing more. Nothing we couldn’t ignore. I walked with Jason to his locker, and then he came over to mine. While I was putting my own books away, we heard the sound of running footsteps charging down the hallway. It was Sara, and when she stopped a few feet away from us, she was out of breath. 

“Where have you two been!?” she panted, “Last I heard, someone saw the two of you leaving school early, and Jason was crying! AND then neither of you show up for a week!? Do you have any idea how worried I was!? Are you guys ok!?”

“Breathe, Sara.” I said, motioning with my hands for her to calm down a little, “We’ll tell you everything in lunch, there’s not enough time before class starts.”

“You promise?”

“Yeah, we promise. Don’t worry, sorry for worrying you so much.” Jason finished. 

She looked at us and then let out a sigh. I was about to finish putting my things away, when she took both of us in for a hug. “I’m really glad you guys are back.” She said quietly, “It was so boring here without you two.”

On that note, she left. As she was leaving, she turned back around and mouthed the words ‘at lunch, don’t forget’ at us. We both just nodded in agreement as she vanished into the crowded stairway. I laughed a little. 

“Wow...she really missed us. I do feel a little bad for worrying her so much, I guess I didn’t think she’d really notice. Right Jason?”

I looked over at him when I didn’t hear a reply, and Jason looked almost angry. This came as a huge surprise to me, seeing how Sara just gave us hugs and expressed her honest concerns. That meant she cared right? So why was he angry?

“What’s wrong?” 

“If she was so worried and cares so much...why didn’t she ever call?”

I got a little defensive. “She was probably just really busy or something. I don’t think it was anything personal like that.”

“...You’re probably right...lets just go to class ok?”

It wasn’t even first period yet and he was already starting to get on edge. This wasn’t going to be a good day for either of us. I was hoping things would just go well, but whatever. Can’t be asking for too much with situations like this. We walked into homeroom and sat in our respective seats. The room went quiet for a second but quickly went back to being talkative and normal. The few people who sat around Jason however started asking questions as soon as he got settled at his desk. They weren’t being disrespectful or rude, just curious. I couldn’t hear what Jason said to them, but it didn’t look like he said too much, and the group of them seemed satisfied with whatever answer he gave them. Class went as boring as ever, at least that never changed. All week Greg had playing mailman and handing in our homework for us, so it wasn’t like we were even behind on anything. It was mostly just a note-taking class kind of day that passed by way too slow. However, 45 minutes later, class was over and we were on our way. The teacher stopped Jason at the door and pulled him aside while the rest of us left. I stayed and lingered around the door for a little while, but I couldn’t hear anything and I had another class to get to...at lunch, I assured myself as I began walking away. I was hoping really hard that she wasn’t digging around for too much painful information on his first day back.

Soon enough, lunch time came around. The classes between now and then weren’t special in any way. No one brought anything up, notes were taken, homework collected, lessons taught. Just more average every-day school junk. It was almost therapeutic in a way, just back to the same old routine without any sudden and jarring changes out of nowhere. We had told Sara what lunch time we had, and she agreed to work through her original lunch block and come to ours. We all arrived around the same time, and sat down at the same table with our lunches. 

“Ok, so...” Sara started, “What happened? Is everything ok? After someone saw the two of you leave like that last week, there was a lot of talk about why you two didn’t come back at all afterwords. What happened?” 

Jason took a deep breath and started quietly explaining. He was speaking in a tone that was a little louder than a whisper, but not loud enough for over people to easily hear in the crowded cafeteria conversations that were happening around us. I quietly sat back and let Jason explain things himself, and I watched Sara’s face grow from concerned, to scared, to sad. All within a matter of a few minutes. He explained briefly how the police took his parents away after we told my mom, and how we were both interviewed at the station about what happened, and how the bank was also reclaiming his house and how he was now living in mine. 

“I....I can’t believe it...all in one week?”

“Yeah. Messed up right?”

“Jason...” She looked heartbroken. “I knew your house was dysfunctional and all...but I never pegged your parents as child abusers....why did they hit you? What started all of this?”

I found myself curiously looking at him for his answer. I didn’t think of it at the time, but even I didn’t know what exactly happened that night. I only know from the point where I stepped in with my mom...what did happen the night before school that day? Jason must’ve picked up on my curiosity along with Sara’s because he glanced over at me before letting out a deep sigh. He kept his eyes on the table and didn’t look at either of us when he started explaining. 

“I guess it would be good to talk about it, huh? It was sort of like any other night. It started out as arguing that just kept getting louder and louder. By that point I was up in my room hearing them start to pick up, so I sort of got into the routine of just calling the police when they got that way. I was about to do just that when I heard new sounds that I didn’t hear any other time. Things breaking, screaming, things being torn up, it sounded like a full riot broke out downstairs. I got horrified and worried that they were trying to kill each other or something, so for some stupid reason instead of just calling the cops like I should have, I ran downstairs. They were throwing things and shouting, and things were tipped over, it was horrible. I stood on the last step of the stairs stunned silent, until my dad noticed me there.”

He took a drink of his milk and continued. “I remember him coming up to me, looking angry and stressed out and talking in a low tone, demanding that I do back up to my room and stay there. He also told me not to call the police, because they were just working things out, and that it was pointless to keep calling them over. At that point I didn’t know that they were already on bad terms with them, so of course to me this seemed so out of nowhere. I shook my head and took a step back. I remember looking over at mom, who was just standing there giving me this horrible look, as if I had already done something wrong...I agreed and started cautiously going back to my room, when they started up again. I hadn’t even made it all the way upstairs yet. I don’t remember what got into me, but I suddenly got really angry. Furious. I ran back into the living room and shouted at them to knock it off as loud as I could, or else I would call the cops. That’s when Dad stormed over....”

Sara and I both looked at each other nervously. We were going to tell him that he didn’t need to go on anymore if he didn’t want to, but he kept continuing anyway...We decided to just let him talk it out, since obviously somewhere he must’ve wanted to at this point. 

“...I don’t know what got into me but I stared him down. I looked him straight in the eyes and said that if they didn’t stop, I wasn’t afraid to get someone else involved. Then he started shouting at me, and then my mom started shouting at him, and I just exploded. I told them they were out of warnings and that I was going to make the call. ‘THAT’S IT’ I shouted...I don’t think I’ve ever yelled so loud in my entire life up until then...that’s when he grabbed me and...well...smacked me...I don’t even remember if it hurt or not...it was like in those few seconds all of time and space stopped. Everything went dead silent. When I looked back over at them, they were just standing there. My mom looked horrified and my dad looked indifferent. I stood back up and just stayed there for a few seconds holding my face...and I think I might have started crying, but it’s a huge blur so I'm not sure. I remember my mom shouting ‘YOU IDIOT! NOW HE’S DEFINITELY GOING TO CALL THE POLICE! YOU STUPID STUPID IDIOT!’...like that was the only thing that she was concerned about. She didn’t care that he just nailed me one in the face. Then they started fighting again, and I tried to get them to stop, but it only made things worse. Then I guess one thing led to another and I stole the phone and bolted up stairs. That’s when I shoved my desk in front of my door and called.....That’s about it.”

We all sat in complete silence once he was finished. It looked like Sara was in just as much shock as I was. We both didn’t know what to say. That...That was horrible. I couldn’t even begin to try and imagine what that must’ve been like to experience. I swallowed hard and put my hand on his shoulder. “Well...it’s all over with now at least...You’ll never have to deal with anything like that ever again.”

He smiled at me and nodded, and then started to reassure us that everything was fine. But everything wasn’t fine, and he couldn’t fool us. Re-telling everything in detail like that took at lot out of him, you could see it all over his face. He looked like he was ready to cry again, but was using everything he had to hold it back. Sara leaned over and hugged him tightly, and I did too. We both hugged him from our respective sides, and he didn’t try to push us away. When lunch period was over, the three of us made a plan to all hang out and do something after school. It seemed to make Jason feel better, giving him something else to look forward to for the rest of the day, but Sara and I? We were still disturbed. We had to come up with something that could make this a little easier for him...but what? Maybe there wasn't anything we could do, but we definitely wanted to. Something special.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ((Random note: Over 500 hits!? Holy crap guys!))

After school let out, we all met up in the parking lot and waited for Sara’s mom to come and pick us up. I had already called my mom and told her that we were all going to hang out at her house and then probably somewhere else for a while. My mom thought it was a great idea, though I think she’ll just be happy if anything or anyone gets me out of the house. When her mom pulled up, music blasting and all, we piled into her car. Sara sat in front while Jason and I got in the back. We had to move a few things around to make the seats actually available, but that didn’t even take more than a few seconds. Even though it turns out that Sara lives a little farther away from the school than we do, it still shouldn’t take too long to get there. Her mom turned the music down and started making conversation while she drove. 

“So, how was school today guys? Anything fun to talk about?” 

“No, not really,” I said. “Just...normal old school I guess.”

“Everything is ok with you two though, right? I heard from Sara that you’d been absent for the entire week.”

“Everything’s fine.” Jason answered, “Or at least, it is now. There’s nothing to worry about...It’s really nice to meet you by the way.”

“Nice meeting you too dear. What are your names again?”

“I’m Jason, and he’s Wirt.”

She suddenly got a bit of a frown on her face. We weren’t looking at her, but the angle the front mirror was at gave everything away. It looked like she had just figured something out that made her uncomfortable. “...Jason huh?” She asked in a polite yet concerned tone. She made an eye motion over to Sara, who had nodded in agreement to something. Jason must’ve picked up on whatever it was they were doing, because he suddenly looked embarrassed. 

“...Did the word get out already?” He asked in a quiet tone, almost guiltily. 

She put on her turning signal and made a right turn, quickly slowing down half way to meet a red light. She let out a bit of an empathetic sigh. “Jason, you’re parents were very social people. Most people around here knew them on a pretty personal level. We heard about what happened almost as soon as it did. I know I heard about it from some neighbors the next day. She said, ‘Did you hear? The Funderberber’s went and got arrested last night!’ We didn’t have any details, but we had ideas since all of that week people were gossiping about how they would fight at night when the day was done.”

Jason just kept staring out the window while she continued. “A lot of us knew they had a son, so we were wondering where he was in all of this, where he’d end up...I had no idea I’d have him in my car today. So tell me, where are you at now that you’re parents are away?”

“I’m boarding with Wirt's family.” he answered honestly. 

“Well that’s nice, living with a friend.”

I could tell that Jason was getting tired of explaining this situation to people, but he was still being polite and answering everything she’d ask. She wasn’t being rude in the least, just another concerned parent who probably wants to make sure he’s ok. Especially if she’s only gotten bits and pieces about his parents via passed around gossip. “If you don’t mind me asking, what finally did them over? What put them in the slammer?”

“....They just ran out of warnings, that’s all.”

“Well, that’s too bad. I’m sorry to hear it. They were such nice people around the rest of us.”

“Wish I got to see that side of them. They were always to angry at each other whenever I was around.”

Sara’s mom was quiet for a moment, trying to think of what to say. Eventually, right when we were turning onto their street, she spoke. “That’s because they were behind closed doors. When folks get home, the entire act can drop. Most of us had no idea it was an act, I thought they loved each other as much as any husband and wife could. You wouldn’t see their nice side if you only ever saw them when it was ‘safe’ to be themselves. And that’s terrible. I wish there was something more I could say or do, but just knowing you escaped this without any injury is enough to make me feel a little better.”

Jason started to laugh nervously. “Yeah...thank God they never hit me or anything, that would just be the worst!” 

Sara and I both turned to him, and then back at her mom. Jason was never a good liar, but it was like he didn’t even try with that comment. The nervous tone in his voice didn’t cover anything up, and anyone with a brain could catch on that what he just said was complete bull. It was almost like he did it on purpose, like he wanted her to know but he didn’t want to say it. I think maybe he just wanted to throw everything out there so we could drop the topic, without actually admitting to it himself. I wouldn’t have any idea if this was right or not though, I’m not a mind reader. Sara’s mother had caught on, but chose to not to point it out directly either. 

“Well, at least they’re away now...All I can say. Also, I wouldn’t go around feeling guilty of anything, you didn’t do anything wrong. However they acted or reacted to you was all on them, you’re the child, it’s not your responsibility to keep them happy. I know being family and all it might’ve seemed like some kind of obligation, and that having this all fall through like it has is something like a personal failure, but it isn’t. Sara’s talked about you a few times, and from what I’ve seen of you so far I can tell you’re a sweet boy. I don’t want any sad feelings over here now, you got that?” 

She said the last part with an empathetic smile, and Jason quietly nodded and shifted back into the seat. Satisfied, she continued driving down the roads and put the music back on. I looked back over at Jason again, whose reflection I could see in the window he kept staring out of. He looked so embarrassed and depressed, like he wanted to just disappear or something. I think at first the attention was kind of nice...This huge secret that had been burdening him for a while that no one was smart enough to look into finally came to light. Since then people were expressing their concerns to him, which he had told me before was not something he was used to...  


However, this being the second week since, I think it’s becoming a little less flattering and more and more annoying. Maybe not annoying, but something he couldn’t get himself to feel better about anymore. No one was saying anything bad or hurtful, a lot of the times all we would hear were very kind and supportive statements. But after a while of hearing the same things about the same subject, the words of reassurance start to lose their meaning. Being as discrete as possible, I reached over and touched his hand. Nothing obvious, but just enough to remind him I was here. He seemed to appreciate it. 

A few more minutes passed and we arrived at Sara’s place. It was a little ranch-style house similar to the one I used to live in before the family moved when mom got pregnant with Greg. Sara showed us up to her room, which happened to be one of the most incredible room’s I’ve ever seen. She had books piled up everywhere and an arrangement of furniture that really brought out the space of everything. She had beads for curtains and posters and pictures all over the walls. After I was finished spazzing about how cool her room was, we all pulled up chairs and started talking. Sara caught us up on what sort of drama we had missed in school. Hangups in the football team, rumors of who was cheating on who, things we normally wouldn’t be interested in, but this was the only conversation topic either of us could think of to talk about besides the obvious. 

Jason seemed to be enjoying not being the center of the discussion, and I enjoyed seeing them both laugh over the stupidest things. I laughed too, but not because I thought it was funny, just because if you’re in a room with two other people who are laughing so hard there are tears, you’d just be stuck laughing either way. The conversation ended up transitioning into shitty puns, which is what started the giggle fits to begin with. It was some real genuine fun for a change, it was refreshing to say the least. Once it started getting dark, Sara suddenly grinned and shushed at the both of us with an eager “wait for it...now!” And right on queue, we heard Sara’s mom call from down the hall. 

“I’m heading out for a while, I’ll be back home late!” 

“Ok Mom!” Sara shouted back, “See you in a bit!” 

The front door slammed shut and we saw the car lights brighten up the driveway before disappearing into the streets. “How did you know you’re mom would be leaving like that?” I asked. 

“She always goes out on Monday nights. It’s her poker night with her lady friends.” As she was talking, she started gathering her things and putting on her jacket.

“Where are you going?” 

“Not where am I going, where are WE going!”

Jason and I looked at each other. “We’re sneaking out somewhere?” Jason asked.

“Heck yeah we are! I found this really cool spot that I’ve been wanting to show you guys all week! I know it’ll cheer you up and get your mind off things. It’s my new favorite place to run off to when I just feel like chilling out. You two are going to love it, trust me!” 

“But....it’s the middle of the night. Isn’t sneaking out at this hour dangerous?” 

“C’mon Jason, it’s only like 8:30. It just get’s dark early around this time of year. Technically we’re not even out that late, now get your jackets on and lets go!” 

She seemed really excited about leaving, so Jason and I went along with it. All three of us managed to fit on her bike, although as you can imagine it was a little complicated. Jason balanced himself so he was sitting in the basket that hung off of the front handlebars while I stood on the back pegs. It definitely wasn't the safest idea in the world, especially since Sara was going at a speed that neither Jason or I were very comfortable with. That little detail aside, she made it work really well. It also helped that Jason was the shortest out of all of us and could easily bee seen past. I'm not sure how we were able to keep our balance for the whole ride, but something tells me it was just because Sara was the one driving. If it were Jason or I steering we would've crashed into something by now. I still had no clue where she was leading us, but it should be interesting enough right? At least it’ll be cooler than just sitting around doing nothing....I guess.


	14. Chapter 14

It was kind of hard to see where exactly we were going from my end, Sara’s hair kept blocking my field of vision. It wasn’t anything too annoying, it was just that this was really going to be a surprise when we finally got there since I couldn't make out what direction we were going in anymore. Sara and Jason were talking to each other up front the entire ride there, but I was too busy actively trying to keep my balance on the pegs to really want to include myself anyway. I couldn’t even tell you what they were talking about. Suddenly the bike made a swift turn to the left, and for a moment, I swear we entered through the front gate of the ‘Eternal Garden’ cemetery. I lifted my hand to rub my eyes quickly, but when I opened them back up, we were racing past gravestones left and right. I felt my heart plunge into my stomach and suddenly felt really sick. Out of all the places in the world, why did it have to be here? 

Sara stopped the bike under a tree and put the kickstand down. She got off and helped Jason out of the basket before tying her bike lock around the trunk. I stepped off the pegs and cautiously glanced around...what could be here that she was so excited about? When I looked back over at them, Jason and her were talking about something funny and they were both laughing...something about how Jason was gripping the sides of the basket so hard that the texture was indented on the skin of his hands. I have no idea why this was so funny, but at the moment, nothing could have made me laugh...being here brought back too many memories. I quietly walked over to her and tugged on the hem of her jacket. 

“If un, I could ask...what are we doing here exactly?” My voice cracked into a pitch that obviously gave away the fact that I was feeling like I was going to scream.

Sara’s facial expression changed into a hint of concern. “What’s the matter Wirt? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

“I...I just don’t like being here that much...what are we doing here?”

“I’m showing you two the super cool secret thing I found!” The look of excitement was back on her face, and I really REALLY didn’t want to disappoint her...or look like an idiot...So I took a deep breath and pushed all the horrifying feelings I had wallowing inside of my as far down as I could. It tasted terrible. 

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Can’t wait to see it!” I forced a smile on my face, “I bet it’s gotta be really cool to be all the way out here....in the cemetery.” 

She seemed satisfied with my answer and quickly started to lead us through the lines of graves. “You guys are gonna love it! It’s completely vacant and totally up for grabs!”

Jason and I followed behind her as she ran excitedly ahead of us, occasionally calling out for us to keep up. We picked up the pace, but I couldn’t shake of the stinging anxiety that was still blasting me from the inside out. Jason started speeding up ahead, but I just couldn’t pick myself up to run. She was leading us in the same direction as Greg and I had run off in those few months back, and it was like with every step I took, it was harder to get myself to move. It looked like she was leading us right to the wall that separated the plots from the train tracks on the other side....oh god the train tracks....I felt like I was going to throw up. I stopped walking and sat down against a random headstone that was near by and tried to calm my own nerves. I tried by best to remember the tips mom had given me when I would have panic attacks, but I had been avoiding this place like the plague for this exact reason. It was impossible to think straight in this stupid place. It was getting dark and the two of them had run off ahead of me...but that’s fine too, I’d much rather just sit here anyways. Of course as if on queue right when I started to settle down a bit, Jason startled the shit out of me. 

“Wirt? You back there?” He called, his voice was loud enough to break my concentration and send my heart-rate through the roof. I was sent back into panic mode once again. Without even looking up to see him I turned away, feeling tears start automatically falling down my face for reasons I couldn't begin explain. This was horribly embarrassing, and I really didn’t want anyone to see me like this, especially not Jason or Sara. But of course, this was Jason. He saw me flinch and turn away shaking, so of course he came running over. He was always too good at reading body language from a distance. He knelt down beside me and put a hand on my shoulder and started to speak to me in a low tone. 

“...Wirt? Are you ok? What happened?” His voice was quiet but full of honest concern. “Did you trip over something? Are you hurt?”

“N-No...” managed to answer through the shakiness of my voice, “I just...I don’t know...I don’t feel well and I’m panicking.” I started to talk fast and I kept stuttering and stammering as I continued to try and explain myself through my own lack of breath. “...and I don’t want Sara to see me like this and I feel stupid but I really don’t want to be here and I don’t know I’m just not feeling well and it’s getting dark and-“

“Wirt, take it easy. Breathe. You’re going to be ok, I’m right here-”

“That’s not helping! I want to go home!” I snapped. I didn’t mean to snap at him like that, but I wasn’t exactly myself at the moment. It startled him, but he didn’t get mad. He just scratched the back of his head and sat down next to me. He looked deep in thought for a moment than began to speak again. 

“Are you having a panic attack?”

“What do you think, wise guy! No shit I’m having a panic attack! Can’t you see me shaking and blubbering like an absolute idiot! Isn't it obvious!?” More tears rolled down my face and I quickly and harshly scrapped them away with the sleeve of my hoodie. Jason grabbed my hand and held it between both of his. 

“Wirt, listen to me, it’s ok. If you're really having a panic attack, that's nothing to be ashamed of! We're your friends! We want you to feel safe. You’re going to be ok.... You’re not alone here, and it’s only you and me here for now. If Sara starts coming back, I’ll just tell her to leave us be for a little bit if you want, but for right now we should try and calm down. Want to breathe with me?”

I wiped away another stream of tears and nodded in agreement. Jason held my hands and started taking deep breathes, and I followed his lead. He held my hands tight, which did help to ground me a little more. He told me to only focus on him and nothing else, and we continued breathing together until my vision became a little more clear. The whole time we were doing this he was also kept reassuring me that there was nothing to be embarrassed of, and that everything was going to be ok....It was really comforting. I slowly started to come down from it until I finally regained control of my racing thoughts. I let out one more deep sigh and let my shoulders relax. 

Jason smiled nervously at me. “Feeling any better? A little bit? Are you ok?”

“Yeah...I’m alright...thanks...”

“You sure-“

“Hey guys! Where’d you run away too?” We heard Sara calling out to us from the other side of the plot. 

“We’ll be there in a second, hold on!” Jason called back, his shouting hurt my head. “Hey...so, do you want-are you feeling up to going with Sara or do you want me to go talk to her and ask if she can take us back home?”

I was feeling really tired now that everything had settled down. I awkwardly rubbed the back on my neck and shrugged. I didn't want to admit that I didn't think I was up for going forward with this, but there was no way I was going to be able to drag myself closer to those tracks. Jason paused for a second, and then nodded, catching on to what I was thinking, and walked off to find Sara. Thankfully he got what I was getting at without me having to say it, though I still felt really bad. I didn’t mean to ruin anyone’s time...I just couldn’t do it. This place...

I heard Jason talking to Sara around the corner, since it was really quiet around here. He told her that I was feeling sick and wanted to go home, and in that moment I wanted to jump over and hug him. He wasn’t even going to bring up my panic attack unless I told him he could, which in this case I didn’t...it really doesn’t take him long to really get to know somebody. I still felt guilty anyways, Sara sounded pretty bummed out when he said we were just going to go home. They made plans to go see this thing she wanted to show us another day, and hopefully next time I could build up the nerve to maybe tag along....maybe. They came back, and Sara was asking me if I was ok and all that, and we talked for a little bit. I told her must’ve been something I ate that just didn’t sit well or something like that...I don’t know what I was so afraid of, she didn’t seem like the kind of person to judge...I guess I just didn’t want to risk anything right now. When we got back to where she left her bike, I got to sit up front in the basket while Jason got the back pegs since I was still feeling a little light-headed. It was better than being stuck on the pegs, but I had to crouch down a little more than was comfortable so she could see though, I wasn’t naturally short like Jason was. 

It was a pretty smooth ride on the way back, and Sara kept talking about how when I was feeling better it would be amazing if I would go with her and Jason to see whatever it was this was all about. I agreed to go along, but this week wasn’t good for me. I made up an excuse about being busy with school projects or something. I could tell Jason knew I was lying, but he backed up my stories...god I love him so much right now. After riding around for a while, we made it back to Sara’s house, where I used her phone to call my mom to come pick us up. I continuously apologized to Sara for cutting the trip short, but she assured me it was ok. 

When Mom pulled in the driveway, we waved goodbye and parted our separate way, but not before Sara called out “I hope you feel better soon! See you in school on Monday!”

“Get well soon?” My mom asked while Jason and I buckled ourselves in. “What’s wrong? Is someone sick?”

“No Mom, no one’s sick...but I did sort of...have another panic attack today...”

“Oh honey, I'm sorry. Are you ok? Do you know what set it off?” 

“...I have no idea, it just kind of happened.”

Jason looked at me and agreed not to tell her that we’d snuck out to the graveyard tonight. While she just left it alone at that, Jason leaned over and whispered in my ear, “We can talk about this later, when we get back home...if you want.” 

I sat there and thought for a little bit. 

“Yeah,” I whispered back, “I’ll talk about it when we get back....there’s kind of a lot I haven’t told you yet.” 

“It’s ok, you don’t need to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“..Thanks, but I think this is something I should talk to someone about...maybe...”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Sorry I haven't been able to update much, I've just been really busy. I did however have like 2 snow days this week so I actually had some time to write! Thank you for understanding ;u;)

It’s been over a month since Jason started living with me, and it’s all been going by so fast. I can remember back to when this all started like it was only a few hours ago. Be that as it may however, the fact doesn’t change that it’s been a long enough time that things started feeling normal again. Last week, Sara invited us to go see some secret place she found out by the grave yard, though I couldn’t go through with it. I felt terrible, but even thinking about that place leads me all the way back to when Greg and I got lost in the Unknown, and it’s just too painful. I haven’t told anyone else about any of that yet, and honestly I don’t plan to...at least not for a little while yet. 

Jason and I started dating a few weeks ago too. It’s been really nice but sort of awkward at the same time because we have to be all sneaky about it. We still haven’t told anybody, but Greg unfortunately is completely aware now. While my parents were out last night and Greg was in bed, one thing lead to another and Jason and I started making out. I mean like, really making out. Like...holy shit. However, neither of us noticed that Greg had woken up and had come downstairs to get a glass of water. 

We were sitting on the couch watching TV when it started. That little shit was as quiet as a mouse; we wouldn’t have noticed for who knows how long if I hadn’t just opened my eyes at the right moment. I remember how I had a direct view of the kitchen, and how I saw Greg just quietly sneaking around getting water. I ended up yelling at him right in Jason’s face, which made him impulsively scream and shove me off the couch. It’s kid of funny now that I think about it, one minute we’re quietly kissing and then suddenly I shout “GREG WHAT THE FUCK” while still being not even an inch away from his face. So smooth I know. 

Greg explained that he noticed we were kissing when he was still only half way down the stairs, and that he didn’t want to interrupt us. He wined in his defense that he was being as quiet as possible, but that wasn’t the point. I was angry and embarrassed, but Jason had a lighter mood about it. He just ended up laughing and telling Greg that it was ok, but that he needed to keep it a secret for now because no one else was supposed to know. He seemed a little confused, but agreed anyways. He ended up staying up with us watching the rest of our show until he eventually fell asleep. I carried him upstairs and put him in his bed, and returned back to the couch with Jason. That was around 2 days after the whole panic fiasco with Sara and the cemetery. 

The next day I was woken up to the sounds of rustling and moving around downstairs. It was really early in the morning on a Saturday, when everyone in the house is normally sleeping in. I checked on Greg and he was still asleep, so I went to go downstairs to see what the ruckus was about, but ended up stopping on the first step. I saw my parents sitting at the kitchen table with Jason, fully dressed and wide awake, with serious tones in their voices despite talking as quietly as possible. Jason has that numb look on his face again, whatever this was he was already shutting himself down over it. 

“We know this is horribly last minute, but that’s our fault.” My mom said, “We got the reminder call last night but by the time we got home everyone was still sleeping.”

“What about Wirt? What do we tell him?” Jason had responded, looking down at the table. 

“Wirt needs to stay here and watch Greg, we’ll leave a not for him on the fridge.”

“I kind of wanted him to be with me....you know....support n’ stuff.”

“I know dear, and I’m sorry, but there’s just no time for that right now. My husband and I need to be there since we’re the ones taking legal custody at this time, and you need to be there for well, everything else obviously. Someone needs to stay and watch Greg, and we need to leave in a few minutes.” 

My heart sank. They were taking him somewhere and they weren’t going to tell me? While Jason and mom kept talking, my step dad was writing something on a piece of paper and putting it on the fridge, then he went outside and started the car. I wanted to show myself and just ask what was going on, but they looked like they were getting ready to just walk out the door at any moment now. I felt like if I just went down and asked them to explain, I’d just make them late to whatever it was. I could tell by how they were talking and tones of the room that whatever this was it was seriously important, so once again I kept to myself. 

I did keep my spot on the top stair and listened in as much as possible though, but by that point my dad came back in and announced that the car was ready. Then the talking had stopped, and everyone started gathering their things and walking out the door. As soon as the door slammed I went downstairs. I watched them drive away through the window and once they were off in the distance, I walked over to the fridge to read the note they left me. 

Oh fuck. 

They had gone to court. The court date was today. It was fucking today and my idiot parents forgot to mention it to us. That would explain why they were talking about rushing so much. The note basically explained that with everything going on it had “slipped their minds” until last night when they were out and received a reminder call about coming in this morning. I swallowed hard. Jason and I had been talking about this ever since the first ride back from the police station. Every time we would talk about it, he would go on and on about how scared he was. How terrified he was to be in the same room as his parents and have to sit there and explain to dozens of strangers how they would treat him. 

I had promised him that I would go with them, even just sitting in the same room would have been enough; but they were already gone. It’s true though, I hadn’t thought about who would be watching Greg. That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, and I’m sure Jason understood that, he wouldn’t be mad at me for not being there or anything...right? 

I took the note off the fridge and sat down at the table. The clock above the oven read 7:30am, it was way too early to wake Greg up yet. How long would this take? How long would they be gone for? Either way in the back of my head I knew Jason was going to be a huge mess when they get back. Who wouldn’t be? But this was a huge deal. This was the thing he and I would talk about that this entire month had been leading up to. He would be in there with his abusers, testifying against them and basically sending them to jail officially...that would be too much for anyone. My mind started racing in all directions as to how bad this could end. What are all the ways this could go wrong. He was already so fragile when it came to even mentioning his parents after all of this, and now he was going to see them in person again, only under worse circumstances. I got myself so worried that I picked up the phone and called Sara. 

“H-Hey Sara? You awake?”

“Ugghh....I am now. Wirt is that you?” she sounded really groggy.

“Yeah it’s me, and sorry for calling you so early on a Saturday but please don’t hate me. I’m kind of freaking out right now.”

“Freaking out about what?” I could hear her bed springs moving as she was sitting up. 

“Jason and my parents went to court today.”

“What!?" She sounded more awake now. "Since when was that set for today?”

“I...I don’t know.” I was running my hand nervously through my hair and paced back and forth while we were talking. “Apparently for a while but my dumb-ass parents FORGOT TO MENTION IT to either of us until this morning. They didn’t even go to wake me up! They just left me this stupid note on the fridge!” 

“Ooohhh my god.” I could hear the aggravation in her voice. “Are you serious right now?”

“Sadly yeah I am...so as I was saying, I’m kind of worried sick and I’m stuck keeping an eye on Greg while they’re gone. Do you think you could come over?”

“Yeah, I’ve got nothing planned for today, but I need to shower and get ready and all that crap, plus I need to let my mom know where I’m going. I have a few chores she wanted me to get done today but I should be able to finish those off pretty quickly. I should be able to be over around 10 is that ok?”

“Yeah, that’s fine...thanks so much.”

“Not a problem, thanks for telling me.”

“See you later today, then.”

“Bye.”

The conversation had ended on that note, and I was back to sitting slumped at the kitchen table. When Sara would be here in 2 and a half hours, I wanted to spill everything. My head was racing with how I just wanted to voice every single little concern I had about anything. I wanted to tell her every single little thing that’s been going on so she’d be as caught up as possible when Jason got back, but even then I wasn’t sure if that was such a good idea. I started feeling a headache coming on so I went for the aspirin in the cabinet. Maybe it would be for the best to just fill her in, especially if Jason is going to be coming back all broken and looking for immediate support, but would he want that? Would that be pushing too far? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see when Sara comes around how this is all going to play out.


	16. Chapter 16

When 10 o’clock rolled around, I found myself sitting on the couch and staring at the door waiting for her knock. Greg had since then woken up, and I told him about how mom and dad left with Jason to go to court, and even though he didn’t exactly understand what was going on, he did know that it was serious, and that he was a little worried too. However, like always, he was more enthusiastic and positive about it. Saying stuff about how it was all for the better and things were going to work out and be just fine and everything will be ok. It was comforting in a way, but it didn’t ease any of my concerns. I told him that Sara would be coming over, and that I wanted a little bit of alone time with her for maybe an hour or so, and he was more than happy to agree to leave us be for a while. Of course then he went on and on about how he was too old for a babysitter anyways. When Sara did finally arrive at 10:30, he ended up just going up to his room and started playing with his toys or whatever. At least that’s what it sounded like from all the massive fake explosion noises he was making followed by screaming and “HAVE NO FEAR THE HERO IS HERE!” being blasted from upstairs. 

“Sorry I’m late, I sort of lost track of time while finishing up some last minute homework related things. How’s everything going?”

“I haven’t heard anything from anyone yet, so I’m trying to think everything’s ok. I still just can’t get the images out of my head of things just going from bad to worse though. I’m really worried.”

“I’m pretty worried too, but look at it this way. He’s not alone in there with them. It’s a huge room filled with people, and though that may make it more intimidating it’s also way more safe. If they really start pulling bullshit there are dozens of people including your parents there to back him up. He’s going to be fine...though when he comes back like you said he’s probably going to be really upset anyways. But hey that’s where we come in right?” 

She smiled and patted my shoulder. “Also, I know Jason cries a lot over these kinds of things, and yeah like you said anyone would be, but he’s not a weak person by any means. He’ll be strong when he needs to be. It’ll be fine.”

“I sure hope so...but also, I’ve seen how he gets when we’d talk about it and stuff. He completely shuts down and it’s kind of scary. He’ll just go into sock and not say anything for hours on end. That’s how he was a lot of the time when he first moved in here.”

“Hmm...well, you never know. I mean, this could go the exact opposite way of what we expect? Maybe this’ll end up giving him the closure he needs and he’ll actually feel better? Who knows this might just end up being better for all involved.”

“I hope, but I highly doubt that...I dunno’ maybe it’s just because I’ve heard the way he talks about stuff like this, the look he gets on his face. I’m not disregarding what you say I’m just....ugh I don’t know. I’m just a worried mess of stupidity right now.” 

“No I understand, I was just trying to bring a little positive thinking to all of this, most of the time being pessimistic doesn’t help so much in times like these.” 

“Yeah.”

There was a short pause i our conversation until Sara started talking again. “Hey Wirt? Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“I hope this doesn’t come out the wrong way but it’s just something I’ve been wondering for a little while now.”

“What is it?”

“When did you start caring this much about Jason? Like, I knew you guys became friends and all, but you’re like pulling your hair out worrying about him. People have had people stay at their houses and still end up being distant, I guess I’m just curious? In school just a little over a month ago if someone did so much as bring his name up you’d get really annoyed. What happened that changed all that?”

“O-Oh. Well, um...I guess I just started enjoying his company more when I actually gave him a chance instead of just assuming that he’s a jackass or whatever.”

“So just the first time you hung out? Really? Hanging out one time changed your mind that fast?”

“...It’s complicated.”

“We’ve got all day.”

We got up and moved our conversation to the kitchen. 

“The first time we hung out, it was interesting. I sort of built up this image of him being this ‘Mr. Popular-Super-Star’ or whatever, but when we were just in my room before any of this shit went down, he was just kind of chilling out and reading one of my books. It was weird. The entire image I built up in my head about him was crushed pretty fast, especially since on top of all that he was also wearing different colored socks.” 

I poured us both some soda and sat down in the chair across from her. When I glanced up, she was chuckling to herself and giving me this smirk. “What?”

“I just think it’s funny that’s all. Where did you even pull that from? Jason is a total dork! What gave you the impression that he was some kind of superman?”

“Um...I don’t know. Just stupid assumptions I guess. He would always be talking to everyone and class and stuff and I’d be sitting in the same room scared to even raise my hand half the time.”

“I guess I can see where’d you’d get that then...So was that the end of it? You were just like ‘well ok guess we’re best friends now’ or something?”

“Huh?” 

“I’m not blind, Wirt. I know something’s up between you two. I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s there. I used to be the person he’d go to for everything from talking about life to just making bad puns, and now he hardly talks to me. I mean he still does, we’re still best friends, but he suddenly majorly shifted from wanting to spend time with me to you, when not too long ago you hated his guts.” 

I started fumbling with the cup of 7-Up I had poured myself. “It’s uh...it’s not like that...Well I, uh, I didn’t know he got distant from you.”

“He didn’t get that distant, but it’s noticeable. I’m not hurt, it is really good to see you two getting along so well, but I just feel sort of out of the loop? We’re all close friends here right? Then all of the sudden two out of the 3 of us start spending all this time together leaving the third person out? I just wanna’ know what’s been up.”

I was silent. She did have a valid point, I hadn’t been thinking about how this impacted her at all. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that I was getting between his and her friendship just because we ended up hooking up. Maybe it was for the best that I tell her the truth so she at least wouldn’t be left out anymore. Jason did say he was already out to her and it was up to me if I wanted anyone else to know...and I guess it did feel good to talk about it. I finished the rest of my drink and took my glass to the sink.

“If you really want to know, I’ll tell you.” I said while rinsing the cup under the faucet. “But you have to promise not to act weird about it.” 

“Act weird about it? Is it weird?” 

“Well...sort of but not really? Anyways, do you really want me to tell you?”

“Yeah, what are you waiting for? Just tell me already!” 

She didn’t sound angry or anything, but she was annoyed a little with how indecisive I was being, it was all over her face. I sat back down and rubbed the back of my head nervously. 

“It’s nothing against you, I promise that much. We’ve just been so busy with each other that...well it’s not that we forgot about you but-“

She gave me this pissed off glare when I said that part. 

“N-No I didn’t mean like that! I just....aw man this is harder than I thought...”

“Well?” Now she was looking sort of pissed off. She raised her voice slightly and stood up from her chair. “Out with it already! Did you two just decide after a while that you were going to be best friends without me? That you guys didn’t need me around anymore?” 

“Oh god no nothing like that! It’s just-“

“Just what then? Why is it so hard to just tell me these things!? I get my ass out of bed at 7am on a Saterday to come see you when YOU called ME first and you’re still not going to tell me anything!?”

“If you just let me finish-!” Something tells me this has been building up inside of her for a while. She's never been one to just jump to conclusions like this.

“No I get it. I totally get it. I know I’m kind and sensible all the time but I don’t like being pushed aside out of literally nowhere! I’m sorry but Jason is hardly talking to me anymore and you’re not telling me anything, no one is including me on anything any more and I’m just sitting here wanting to make sure my best friends are ok! I worry about you two ALL the time and no one even-“

“JASON AND I STARTED DATING OK?!” 

Smooth move Wirt, just shout it so the whole free world can hear it. The room went dead silent and I quietly sat back down with a bit of a sigh, I think my face got a little red as the moment kind of settled in. I glanced away and brushed some of my hair out of my face. I didn’t even look at Sara. 

“Yeah...we sort of started dating. It didn’t start off like that right away, but it did kind of happen about a week after he moved in. We started talking and learning more about each other and it just kept going from there. It’s hard to explain...”

“You and Jason are gay together?”

“Um...not exactly...well, sort of? I don’t know. I’m not gay though.”

She gave me a confused look. “But you just said you and Jason are a thing now.” 

“We are, but I’m bi, not gay.”

“Oh.” 

“So...we didn’t mean to leave you out or forget about you or anything like that...but it’s just that all this shit was just kept happening one after another and there was just so many different things to react to. Then we just started getting closer until we ended up holding hands and shit and then it just kept going and then well...we decided to actually start a relationship...I guess. I know that doesn’t excuse pushing you out but I don’t know...it’s just really hard to explain.”

Sara’s face softened up as she leaned back. “It’s ok, I think I understand. I wasn’t looking for excuses anyway, I just wanted to know what was up, and weather or not things were ok that’s all...I feel kind of stupid now. But you know what? Now that you say that it totally makes sense. If there’s one thing that could unintentionally pull that kid away from friends is potential love interests. Or in this case, successful love interests.” 

She started giggling at the end of her statement, and I started laughing too a bit. The mood had lightened up by a ton, but it was still kind of awkward. 

“Jason told me he already came out to you, and that if I wanted to tell you about us then it was all up to me.”

“Yeah, Jason told me he was gay a little while back....so, how’s it working out?”

“Fine I guess? At least I think it’s going pretty well. Jason seems to be really happy whenever we’re doing lovey-dovey stuff so-“

“Ooohh? Lovey-dovey stuff huh?” 

“....shit.”


	17. Chapter 17

Sara stayed over at my house all day. Greg eventually came downstairs to join us after the awkward conversation between the two of us had ended. I told him that I already told Sara about Jason and I so he didn’t have to keep it a secret from her, to which of course Greg then excitedly blabbed about the embarrassing moment he had walked in on the night before. They both ended up busting a gut at my expense; not that I even cared about that as much. 

“So, you guys have kissed already?” Sara asked still laughing over Greg’s story. 

“Yeah we have a few times now, big deal.” 

We started playing a round of crazy-8’s in the middle of the floor curtesy of Greg. So far Sara was kicking both our asses. 

“I’m not saying anything to be mean, I just think it’s funny is all. You get all flustered and frustrated even when you’re just among friends. No need to get so defensive, we’re laughing with you not at you.”

She had a point, but I also wasn’t really laughing. I was being uptight about things, but mostly because it was still something I was working accepting for myself. When I’m with Jason, that’s all it is. I don’t know how to explain it, but either way it’s complicated. Jason is the first dude I’ve ever felt this way towards, and when I’m kissing him and enjoying it, it’s like it’s not registering that I’m kissing another guy. In the back of my head my brain is still thinking about all my previous crushes and fantasies and flashing the word “Heterosexual” in my mind...but then it’s like “oh wait that’s right you’re dating another dude what do you call that?” Being with Jason feels natural, but I guess it’s something I’m just not used to at the same time. It makes no sense and it's frustrating. Did this mean I was never straight to begin with? Is this what bisexuality is? Can it work like that? Ugh. It’s in times like this that I seriously hate my overly-complicated brain.

A few more minutes had passed, around 15 to be exact, and the game had ended with Sara winning once again. She did her little victory dance and then sat back down like it was nothing. The rest of the time spent was nothing out of the usual, mostly we just sat around and talked after Greg got bored of playing cards. He ended up sitting on the floor with a few toy trucks while Sara and I chilled on the couch. 

“Hey Sara?” I asked, breaking the comfortable silence that was momentarily between us.

“What’s up?”

“It’s getting sort of late and I still haven’t heard anything yet. The note they left said they’d call me at some point if they were going to be late with updates or something....do you think something bad happened?” 

Sara gave me a puzzled look before letting out a bit of a sigh. “I’m sure everything’s fine.” She said, “These legal type things are long and complicated. A lot of the time they can stretch into being a few days long even. Sometimes weeks or months, though I think those kinds are mostly for like murders or something....I don’t know, don’t quote me on that. I’m sure everything’s fine, they’ll probably just be back really late like at midnight or something.”

“What time do you need to be back home?”

“Probably around 8 or 9 I think, why?”

“Just checking.” 

It was around 5:30 now, and Greg started whining that he was hungry for dinner. Sara and I said that we’d take care of it and went into the kitchen without another word and he went back to playing. We decided just to whip up some mac and cheese, to which Greg was instantly excited about. While I was getting the water ready to boil, Sara asked me a question. 

“What time did you say they left again?” 

I put the pot of water on the stove. “Around 7:30. Not long before I called you.”

“So they’ve been in court for 10 hours already?”

“....yeah.” 

“Like I said, they’ll be back later tonight probably. You’ll get updates from them when they get back if nothing else.”

We ended our conversation there for now. After I added the pasta to the water we both just sat down and did our own things for a while. I ended up grabbing the note pad from next to the phone and started writing a few poems, while she took a notebook out of the bad of stuff she brought and began to draw. I’d never seen her draw before, and she was pretty good...Better than anything I could do that’s for sure. We did these things for a while, occasionally going up to check on the pasta. Once the pasta was ready to be drained, we mixed in the butter, the cheese, and the milk. We didn’t even need to announce that dinner was done for Greg to be front and center waiting for his bowl. We all self-served and sat at the table to eat. Greg noticed the drawings Sara had done and was admiring them with everything his little heart had. I remember when he used to praise my poetry like that not too long ago. He probably still would if I ever decided to share them with him again. 

We ate in mostly silence. Greg was happily drawing on the notepad I was just using while he continued to eat. Sara’s drawings had struck him with momentary artistic genius that he just HAD to get down. It was pretty adorable to be honest, I know Sara thought it was the cutest thing ever. I’d be lying if I said that Sara wasn’t still beautiful when she smiled. There was still a part of me that liked her, but I knew she wasn’t going to feel that way about me. It was better that I move on anyways. Also, just being best friends with her was just as good; I wasn’t as nervous talking to her anymore. She's still really pretty though.

All train of thought was interrupted when the phone started to ring. It made all three of us jump since we had spent the greater half of the past 45 minutes being dead silent. Who would be calling right now? No one every usually just calls at this time of the evening. I shot Sara a nervous look, and she motioned me to go pick it up. I was about to when last minute I pulled my hand back and decided to wait to see who it was first. While I was waiting for the answering machine to pick up, Sara just rolled her eyes. We were all quietly waiting for it to kick on, and I stayed planted by the phone. Once the ringing stopped, I hear the answering machine pick up from the other room. 

“Wirt, it’s mom. Please pick-“

“Mom!? Yeah! Sorry about that, we were eating dinner.” I answered before she could even finish her sentence. Greg and Sara both watched me curiously as I anxiously waited for her to continue. 

“Well, I didn’t mean to interrupt your dinner....How is everything going over there?”

“Um...we’re fine. I got the note you guys left for me, I also called Sara and she’s been hanging out with us for a while. Hope that’s ok.”

“That’s fine sweetie but I need you to do something for me ok?” 

I didn’t like the tone in her voice. “Uh, sure. What’s up?”

“I need you to, well, we’re still in court. It’s the break period though, we’ve got about an hour I think. Also, sorry about not waking you up or anything but-“

“What do you need me to do, mom?” I asked again, she sounded off. Something was seriously bothering her, I could hear it in her voice. I felt a knot tie in the pit of my stomach.

“Well...I need you to talk to Jason. He’s standing here with me.”

“Jason!? Oh god what’s wrong.” 

Sara stood up with concern when my voice raised slightly with that exclamation. Greg sat quietly at the table looking down at his drawing, though he had stopped for now. I turned my attention back to the phone. 

“Mom is everything ok? What happened?”

“He's just...He really wants to talk to you and I think it’ll help him a lot. Ok?”

“S-Sure, put him on.” I motioned for Sara to bring me a chair, this phone wasn’t cordless, and I didn’t feel up to standing anymore. She pulled up two and sat by the phone with me. It’s not like she could hear any other side of the conversation besides my end, but she probably just wanted to be on stand by to talk to him if needed. 

When I heard his voice over the other end, he sounded worse than I expected. 

“Wirt? Y-You there?” 

“Yeah. I’m here.” His voice was cracked, groggy, and exhausted. From only hearing a few words form him, I could practically see how he looked at that moment, like he was ready to just pass out at any second. I took a deep breath. “What’s going on? Are you ok? Mom said you wanted to talk to me.”

“Yeah.” 

“...It’s really bad isn’t it.” 

I heard the sound of ruffling from his end, along with what sounded like him trying to catch his own breath. 

“Oh Wirt...It’s fucking terrible.” His voice was trembling. “It’s worse than I was even expecting, and I was already expecting it to be painful...” He took another quick breath, “When the judge asked me those stupid questions...They wouldn’t even let me finish! I was trying to talk and they kept shouting at me! It was my turn to talk and it isn’t fair!” 

“Jason...” 

He started crying. “The judge had to bang that stupid mallet and yell at them to shut up! Everything was so loud I thought-It felt like my everything was going to break!”

“Were you able to tell your side of things?”

“Yeah, I was. Only because he threatened to throw them out if they didn’t settle down....Wirt they hate me so much. They hate me so, so much. I didn’t make anything up! I only told the truth! I was only answering the questions directed at me! I wasn’t doing anything wrong!” He was trying his hardest to suppress his cries and catch his breath, but the more he continued the harder he cried. “Why do they hate me Wirt? What did I ever do to them!? What did I ever do wrong?”

“Just...try and calm down a little alright?” I was trying my best to comfort him, but I really didn’t know what to say. 

“I would if I could, Wirt!” He snapped, “It was different when it was just us in the house! But it’s like the fact that we were in front of dozens of people meant nothing! It’s like losing me means nothing to them! It’s like they don’t even care! They just kept yelling at me when it was my turn to say shit! In front of all those people Wirt! Seeing all their faces staring at me, waiting to see how I would react, I felt like I was going to drop dead! And the judge kept banging that loud mallet thing, it was too much....they....they really hate me Wirt...” His voice softened. “I...I don’t know what I thought before...but I was under the impression that they still cared about me at least a little bit...”

“Jason, they abused you. There's no getting around that. Why would you even think that they cared about you at all?” This probably wasn’t the best thing to say right now, but I was just at such a loss. He didn’t sound offended though. 

“They would always apologize and say they loved me. After every single time they would always say I was everything they had and that I was important to them. They’d...I don’t know...I’m just the idiot who believed them. I thought that’s how families were supposed to work. Even if things get violent, they still HAVE to love me a little right? I’m their kid...I thought they just...I’m so fucking stupid aren’t I.”

I stayed quiet and just let him continue. In my head I wanted to scream. After every single time? How fucking often did this shit happen!? 

“I get it now though, and that’s what hurts so bad. They would only say all those things so I wouldn’t report them. They admitted to it when the judge accused them of manipulation after I described a few different situations. He asked them ‘What were you more afraid of? Your only son getting hurt or being turned into the law?’ and they just said ‘the law.’ Things like that hurt more than...I don’t know, anything else that’s smacked me in the face.” 

“Jason...I’m so sorry. I-I’m horrible at this right now, god damn it. Uh, just listen to me though. They’re bad people, you did nothing wrong. You didn’t do anything to deserve this kind of treatment from them. They are the shittiest kind of parents...and I’m sorry you had to...Uh, what I mean is-“ I started to fumble with my words. “What I mean is, it’s not your job to try and make them love you. It’s supposed to be their job to just love you no matter what, and you’re a great fucking kid you hear me? They’re missing out big time. Remember? You said something like that to me when I told you about my biological dad a while back.” 

Jason was quiet over the other end, though I could still hear him sniffling to himself. “I’m sorry you have to deal with them like this...and let’s face it, they’re probably going to go to jail for real this time. Especially if they’re displaying violent behavior directed at you right in the middle of the fucking court room.”

“I want to leave Wirt. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to go back in there and see their faces again. It hurts too much. Everything hurts too much.”

“Everything’s going to be ok, Jason. When you guys get back, I’ll be right here. A-And look at it this way, after you get back you’ll never have to deal with this bullshit ever again! Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“I’m going to miss them so much...Abusive or not they’re still my parents. We still had good memories too. I-I don’t know what to believe anymore, everything’s so confusing...”

I had no idea how to get through to him like this, though I was starting to realize maybe I wasn’t going to. At least not now while he’s in this state of shock. I sighed and tried to think of something else to say. My chest started to feel tight and my throat started to sting. Sara put a hand on my shoulder. 

“You know I love you, right?”


	18. Chapter 18

“You know I love you, right?” I said, my voice starting to crack a bit. I just wanted him to know that he wasn’t all alone. He was going through hell all over again, but he didn’t have to go through it alone. He just had the reality of his parents smashed in his face in front of dozens of people, and I wanted to make sure that he knew despite all the shit he just was forced to come to terms with, that someone still loved him. There was a short pause after what I said, but he was about to speak again when he got cut off. They has called from a payphone that was in the hallway area outside the court room, and someone else was pushing to use it. Jason quickly said goodbye before hanging up. The phone call came to a close before I got an answer from him.

I hung up the phone, sat back down, and rested my head in my hand. Everything was quiet, but inside my head my thoughts were racing. Greg had taken all the dishes from the table and put them in the sink before going into the other room. Sara pulled her chair closer to mine and gave me a hug from the side, which I turned into a full frontal hug. I wasn’t crying that hard, but the tears were there. She held me tight while quietly whispering to me that things were going to be ok. I have no idea why I was crying, I was way more pissed off than any sort of sad at the moment. If anything these were angry and pathetic tears instead of sad ones, but it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes. 

When we finally let go, I walked over to the counter and ripped off some paper-towels from the roll by the sink. I sat back at the table and wiped my eyes and nose with them before letting my forehead rest back on my hand. Sara pulled her chair away from the phone and sat down with me. 

“Wirt? You ok?”

“No. I’m not. I’m pissed.”

“What happened? I can kind of get the idea that things over on their end aren’t going so well, but what happened? Uh, if you don’t mind telling me?”

“His parents were acting threatening and violent towards him in the middle of the courtroom when it was his tern to speak about what’s been happening.”

“What the heck!? What’s their problem!” Sara was clearly starting to reach the level of anger I was currently at. 

“He was crying his eyes out on the other end again. He said that the judge had to threaten to thrown them the hell out if they didn’t stop to let him finish. Jason sounded devastated over the phone. He said he never realized how much they really hated him until then. He said he was hoping they still loved him. Those assholes don’t deserve the opportunity to love him. They’re actual piles of trash and it makes me feel better knowing that after this little performance they’ll be put away for good.”

“...That’s gotta be really hard for Jason though, huh?”

My voice softened a little. “Yeah. Yeah it is. I could tell by how he was talking to me. He’s all over the place with all of this. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t remember most of today later on. It sounded like he was trying to shut everything out as it was happening but things were just too loud to block. I feel so bad, I wish I was there.”

Sara sighed and left for a moment to get some water for us. When she sat back down she continued. “If anything good comes out of this it’ll be the fact that everything will be said and done and that’ll be the end of it. Then things can really start back on the path of settling down again, even though it’s probably going to be a long and difficult journey to that level of emotional recovery.” 

I sat up straighter and felt the anger start to build up again. “You what else pisses me off?”

“What?”

“Jason lied to me. He straight up lied to my face.”

“Huh?” Sara looked taken back a little with this statement. “What do you mean he lied to you? When? About what?”

“He told me right to my face that they never physically abused him before that time when I got him to agree to tell someone about it. He said it was only ever verbal and that he knew better. He told me that they’d threaten to hit him before, but never did. Over the phone just now? He told me that after ‘every single time’ they would always tell and assure him that they loved him. They fucking beat him more than once, and by the sound of how Jason put it, it’s been happening for a while. I’m pissed.”

Sara fell quiet for a second before talking again. “Maybe, maybe he was in some heavy denial at that point. Like he was trying to convince himself as much as you. He was probably trying to make it sound not as bad because he didn’t want to peg his parents as bad people because he still loved them. Sometimes people who are abused lie to make things sound better than they really are so that they can feel better about it too. I seriously don’t think it was anything personal against you. He trusts you a lot but probably at that point hardly trusted himself. You’re not mad at him are you?”

I sighed and leaned back in the chair. “No I’m not mad at him, I’m mad FOR him. This is bullshit. I mean, knowing he would get yelled at of threatened during those 2 weeks was bad enough, but this has apparently been going on way longer than that...for a really long time. I just don’t understand why he’s so sad about them finally being delivered to justice, he’s never going to have to deal with them ever again. He should be happy! Be happy they’re out of his life! Be happy he’s around people who actually love and care about him! Be happy he’s got gonna get smacked in the head for no reason anymore! Why does he bother crying over them like this?”

Sara looked deep in thought and also leaned back in her chair. She looked frustrated, but I could tell by her eyes that she was more sad than angry. 

“When people are hurt, and I mean really hurt by the ones that they really care about, they always feel responsible in some way. Everything’s changed now. They’re going to be gone for good at this rate and he’s probably scared he’ll have no one. His family is gone. His family is gone and that’s the only detail he can see right now, and he feels like it’s his fault.”

“Well...he shouldn’t. That’s dumb.” I felt like I was going to start crying again.

“I’m not sure why exactly people take responsibility for things out of their control, but we always do. I think it’s because we like to feel like we’ve got everything under control and it’ll all be ok, even when it’s not. I think he’s devastated because after all of this, there is no covering up anymore. It’s done.” 

I looked over at her. “How do you know so much about this kind of stuff?” 

She looked down and chuckled a little bit. “It’s nowhere near the same as what he’s going through, but I remember feeling like it was my fault when my dad ran off one day when I was 7 years old.”

“Your...Your dad left your family too?” I asked surprised. She looked at me with wide eyes and then glanced back down at the floor.

“Yours too? I guess united in broken families we’re all friends for a reason.” She laughed sadly. “I knew your mom had Greg with a step-parent but I didn’t know your other dad bolted too.”

“Yeah, but can we talk about that later?” my voice started to crack and my eyes started watering again. I couldn’t really point out why at this point, it could have been a number of reasons. 

Sara handed me one of the paper towels that were still on the table and put her arm around my shoulders. “It’s ok Wirt, you can cry as much as you want. This bullshit is really heavy.” 

I didn’t cry for too long, but it still felt really good to let it out again. Sara was nice enough to hug me again, and her hugs are very firm and comforting. It was over pretty quickly though, I still found it really embarrassing to cry in front of her like this, even though she’s said dozens of times that it was ok. Once I had settled down, I pulled away only to see that she had started crying too. So it was my turn to hug her. “I just want you guys to be ok!” she whimpered over and over again. She’d been holding this in for a while it seemed, but I couldn’t blame her. She already proved herself to be way stronger than I was by being able to hold it in up until this point....not that she needed to. 

We both calmed ourselves down and decided to just relax until Jason and my parents got home. Sara had called her mom back home and told her the update on the situation, and she agreed to let Sara stay longer. We walked in on Greg sleeping on the couch with the TV on and a drawing of his sitting on the floor. He had drawn a picture of all of us holding hands and smiling with sunshine and rainbows everywhere and had written “It’ll be ok!” in big letters underneath. Greg really was too good for this world, the little sweetheart that he is. I covered him up with a blanket while Sara hung the drawing on the fridge. When she got back we both just sat on the floor and watched some TV. 

“How long do you think they’re going to be still?” She asked quietly. 

“I don’t know, hopefully they’ll be back soon....and Sara?”

“Yeah?” 

“Thanks for putting up with me and my stupid tears back there.”

She playfully nudged me in the arm and smiled. “Don’t start with that now you big dork!” and we both laughed quietly and went back to watching the show. I’m starting to learn how lucky I am to have such great friends. Even if there’s only the 3 of us, we’re strong. We’re the real family here, and we’re not going to be broken anymore. When Jason gets back, we’re going to prove to him that family sometimes isn’t really your family. You’re family can be your friends, and we’re not going anywhere.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ((Sorry it's been so long since the last update! Life got a little in the way for a while there so sorry for the long wait. I'll try to be more frequent with updates but with finals coming up I can't make any promises. I am gonna try though but just please be patient with me for now. Sorry about that ;3; ))

More than a few hours had passed since the phone call had ended, and I eventually moved Greg upstairs to his room to sleep for the night. Sara and I had the whole couch to ourselves, and we spent the greater chunk of those hours just endlessly flipping the channels to see if anything would eventually catch our eyes. Nothing stood out so we decided to just shut it off. Anything else was better than endless looping infomercials, right? The night passed quickly and before we knew anything else, it was already a quarter to midnight. The two of us had actually dozed off on opposite sides of the couch waiting when we noticed how late it was. I’m not sure how long we were asleep for, but it was close to 1:00am when we were startled awake by the sound of the phone rigging. I stretched and picked it up and was greeted by Sara’s mom on the other end. She didn’t want Sara sleeping over or anything like that, so she told me to let Sara know she was on her way to pick her up. 

When I hung up and told Sara she should start gathering her things, she looked angry and disappointed. 

“This blows.” She said while angrily shoving things back into her backpack. “Mom knows how important this is! I really wanted to be here when he got back! I wanted him to know that I’m here for him too.”

“I’m sure he already knows that...but, uh, I could remind him just in case....I’m surprised they’re not back yet.”

“I am too....’Still pissed at my mom though. I mean, what is she so scared of? Isn’t not letting boys and girls have sleepovers together more of like an 8 year old rule than anything else? Besides, you’re dating Jason.”

I laughed a little when she mentioned that. “That may be true, but your mom sure doesn’t know that.”

“Oh yeah...I forgot for a second there.” She finished putting on her shoes and peered out through the kitchen window to see if her mom was outside yet. When she saw she wasn’t, she walked back over to me and gave me a stern look that caught me a little off guard. 

“Wirt? I don’t care what time it is, I don’t care who is where or what is what. When Jason gets back here and once you’re done comforting him and everything, I want you to call me. I have the phone by my bed, and my mom will probably be asleep. I’m serious here, I want all the updates as soon as you get them, got it?”

I swallowed nervously, “Yeah, no problem....but what if I end up falling asleep? There’s a pretty good chance in all this mess I’m going to end up forgetting or just getting tired or something....Just letting you know.”

“If you do end up passing out or something, just call me when you wake up. Even if it’s at like, noon or something. I just really want to be up to date on these things, ok?”

“It’s cool, I get it.”

Our conversation ended when the shine of car headlights lit up the kitchen from outside, and it was Sara’s mom. I walked her out the door, hugged her goodbye, and waved as the two of them drove away. Now that the coast was clear, I let myself slam hard onto the couch and scream into one of the throw pillows. I kept that pillow smashed against my face as I felt all the panic come rushing back. Why was it taking so long? I was fighting to stay awake at this point but I seriously didn’t want to be asleep when they got back. I was not going to sleep though something like this. I had to stay awake. Where the hell are they?

I was never a coffee drinker, but I felt that this was important enough to make an exception. I’d seen my mom make coffee enough times in the morning to know how to work the coffee maker, and I ended up making myself the exact same kind my mom would always make. Cream and sugar galore. By the time it was done brewing and I had gotten my second wind, it was 2:30am. They still weren’t home yet. I began flipping through informercials again to try and calm my nerves, which at this point were through the roof once again. The coffee was also making me jittery, and I was starting to overthink things again. It was weird they weren’t back yet right? What if they got in an accident on the way back? What if things just got worse and worse and they’re still theres fighting and all that garbage? What if someone got hurt? I tried to shove all these pointless worries aside, but it wasn’t working. Nothing was. Not even watching some guy on the TV go on and on about how that vacuum cleaner was so amazing that it changed his life forever. He must have one hell of a boring life if something as dull as some fancy vacuum cleaner brought so much excitement. 

Just then, I saw the kitchen light up from the outside, and the sound of someone pulling into the drive way was heard. I sat up straight, shut the TV off, and listened closely. I didn’t know who else would be pulling up to my house at this hour, but then again my mind was elsewhere at the moment. I heard car doors open and shut, followed by the sounds of my mom and dad talking. I jumped off the couch and anxiously leaned against the arm when I realized it was actually them. This was it. I had been anxiously waiting all day and all night, and now here they are. I heard them start fumbling for the house keys from behind the door, so I just ran and unlocked it before they had a chance to pull them out. As soon as I saw the doorknob turn, I quickly stepped to the side by the stairs and waited for them to walk in. 

The first person to enter was my step-dad. He didn’t say two words to me before pushing past me and heading upstairs to his and mom’s room. Before I could even ask anything, my mom stepped in and headed for the stairs too. She glanced down at me and the mug on the table and smiled. “That coffee is good, isn’t it? I’m going to bed. See you in the morning honey, sweet dreams.” and left me standing there. I knew they were tired, but couldn’t they have waited until-

“Hi Wirt.” I stopped mid thought when I heard Jason’s tiny and cracked voice quietly speak out from behind me. “You...You stayed up all night? You should go off to bed.”

I turned around and stared at him. His hair was a mess, his eyes had massive dark circles under them, and they were both still red and puffy. His nose was runny and he was carrying his hoodie in his arms instead of wearing it. While I just stared dumbly for a second, he spoke again. “You didn’t need to wait up, you know. I didn’t expect you to.”

“Didn’t expect- Jason of course I waited up! After that phone call, I was worried sick!” I walked over to him and led him to sit on the couch with me. He didn’t have any fight in him what so ever. “So? What happened? Are you ok? Is everything settled? What’s going on?”

Jason glanced down at the floor and gave a sad smile. “My....my parents are gone. Locked away, for at least the next 30-40 years. Isn’t that something?”

I felt the back of my throat sting, but I didn’t want to cry yet. I wanted to be strong. Even though knowing that they were away for good made me want to jump for joy, I knew for some reason this was extremely painful for him. I didn’t understand why he was so upset, well, I kind of could, but not really. I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand. He continued to speak. 

“After I got off the phone with you, things calmed down for a little while. Everything went blank around me, I can’t remember any of what the judge said. I can’t remember anything of what your parents said....I can’t even remember what I said. It’s all just gone...I feel so dumb right now...I was just there and it’s all gone. It was all gone the second it was finally quiet.”

“I’m sure it’ll come back...it’s ok to block things out for a while, I-I wouldn’t worry too much about it right now. You look exhausted.”

“Probably because just sitting in that chair for those few hours at a time felt like I just ran a fucking marathon. They kept staring at me with such contempt...I don’t even know what I did wrong.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, I know that much for sure.” As I was talking, tears started falling down his face. He was still staring at the floor, and that fake smile was still holding on for dear life, but the tears kept falling. My voice started to trail off until I just stopped talking. We sat in silence for a few moments before everything just broke. He slammed his face in his hands and sobbed. He was trying to keep quiet, but it wasn’t working well at all. I leaned over and hugged him, and he buried himself in my shirt. His fists were clenching my back so hard I thought the fabric was going to rip, not that I really cared. I held him tightly and rocked back and forth a little as he just let it all out. I was glad I stayed up, I knew he was going to cry like this. I’m glad I was able to hold him while he did.

After a few minutes, he let go. He wiped his face and took a deep breath before saying he wanted to go down to his room. I followed him into the basement and opened the door for him before we walked in. We sat on his bed in silence for a while before he spoke up.

“As much as I really want to talk about all this shit...I’m really tired...I mean not exactly tired but, I don’t think I could sleep right now even if I wanted to. I just don’t want to talk about it all that much. I’ll tell you more about it later, but for right now I just want to put it behind me. That courtroom was hell. All those people staring at me with those sad eyes, total strangers who know nothing about me...”

“It’s ok now.” I said, unsure of what else to say to all of this. “You’re home now, things can only get better from here.” 

I gave him a bit of a smile, but he looked away. “Home, huh.” he mumbled, “If you say so.”

“I’m sorry I can’t think of anything good to say...I’m just really sorry things had to happen like this. I feel really bad. I mean, you deserve so much better than all of this.”

He looked over at me and smiled a little. “Don’t worry, you just being here is good enough...me just sitting here with you is already making me feel better.”

“That’s good...I don’t think you have any idea how worried I was. I drank coffee for the first time in my life tonight.” 

He chuckled at my statement and it felt like I had just reached a milestone or something. God I just wanted to see him smile right now. “I also watched some dumb-ass on TV go on about this super amazing vacuum cleaner for like an hour saying how it like saved his life or something. I was felling second hand embarrassment for this poor dude. He sold himself out to make a long commercial that no one in their right mind is going to sit there and watch.”

Jason chuckled again. “You just said you watched it though.” 

“Only because nothing else is ever on at this stupid hour.”

We started to laugh a little, and then to a moderate amount. It felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders when I saw him start to actually laugh. I kept my shtick going for as long as I could, it was really lightening up the mood and it seemed to get his mind off things. Once we calmed down he hugged me. It wasn’t anything like the desperate hug I had gotten back upstairs, this was a loving hug. A warm ‘I’m-glad-you’re-here’ hug. I hugged him back and we stayed like that for a while before he pulled away. His completion looked much better. His eyes were brighter. He suddenly looked back at me and smiled.

“Wirt?”

“What is it?”

“They’re gone.”

I frowned a little, but he didn’t look or sound sad this time. I decided to smile back, which made him smile bigger. I thought it was a little weird that he was suddenly smiling about something he was crying over not that long ago, but I wasn’t about to say anything like that. Seeing him smile made me happy, no matter how weird the timing may have seemed. 

He started coming in for another hug, which I of course enthusiastically welcomed again, and we hugged as tight as we could for as long as we wanted. Right when we started to let go, he grabbed my forearms and pulled me into a kiss. I was startled, but after how worked up and worried I had gotten that entire day, I just melted into it like there was no tomorrow. Jason was here, safe and sound, and back in my arms. All of the stress we had both experienced that day seemed to disappear for a minute, and we continued kissing until before either of us knew it, we were laying in bed. We stopped for a moment and stared at each other dumbly. I was trying to think of something to say, but all that came out was; “You're ok, right?”

He smiled and nodded, his whole face tinted a little shade of red. “I’m fine...That was a good enough distraction I think...I’m really feeling a lot better. Thank you.”

I started blushing. Maybe it was the way he said it, or just the fact that he just thanked me for kissing him. Either way, I glanced aside and tucked some hair behind my ear. “I-I’m glad that helped cheer you up....are you tired yet?”

“Not really, I think I got a second wind.”

“I’m still awake from the coffee.”

He suddenly reached up and grabbed my hand from behind my head and brought it to his face. “Since we’re both kind of stuck being awake” he started, not looking me in the eyes. “Do you wanna just kiss some more?”

I gulped. Hell yeah I wanted to, but how do I say that without sounding creepy? He just went through hell and back and now he just wants to make out? And I was just gonna go along with it? Before I could think anymore, he made me look at him. 

“Please?” He asked, looking slightly embarrassed. “I...I just need to be distracted for a while, and I really enjoy kissing you. Just for a little while? Maybe? If it's ok?” My face lit up and it made him chuckle a bit. I took a deep breath and nodded in agreement. We pulled each other closer and began kissing again. 

Over the next few minutes, things started to escalate slightly. We started kissing deeper for the first time, and I felt everything in my mind melt away. Jason was reacting the same way I was, just throwing his arms around me and pushing closer without letting go. I’m not sure what was driving us anymore, but we just kept going for who knows how long...and I ended up on top of him somehow. At that point things started getting a little steamy to say the least, and as if on an instinct I started running my hand up and down his chest. As I continued to lead the kiss, I pushed myself against him with a bit of force, causing him to moan and shiver under me. 

I froze dead in my tracks. Whatever kind of trance I was in shattered and was instantly replaced with cold momentary shock as I started to realize what I was doing. I stared down at him, eyes wide. His whole face was bright red and his eyes were closed gently. He was also breathing heavily and that's when I noticed that I needed to catch my breath too. I suddenly began to come down from the high and thoughts of embarrassment and nervousness came over me in waves. I rolled over to the other side of the bed and sat up with my hand over my mouth. 

“Wirt?” I heard Jason ask from behind me after a few awkward moments of silence. “Um....are you ok?”

My mind was racing. “I....uh, I’m sorry!” I frantically snapped as I turned around for a second. “I have no idea what came over me! Oh god I’m sorry!” 

“Sorry for what exactly?” I looked back over at him and saw that he looked just as embarrassed as I did, if not a little more. He started scratching the back of his head as he continued. “I uh....guess that escalated a little quickly didn’t it?” He said as he cleared his throat and looked at the wall. 

“Oh, uh-” I started, “I didn’t...um....make you uncomfortable or anything did I?”

“No, nothing like that, it’s just...I don’t know. Things just started feeling kinda...good?”

“Y-yeah.” 

We both sat there awkwardly for a few minutes before I spoke up again. “I’m sorry I just....I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of thing yet.”

“Me neither...I don't know, that was kind of sudden wasn’t it?”

“-I mean, it’s not that it didn’t feel good for me or anything I just got kind of startled and....whatever-“ I started laughing nervously, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Jason looked at me for a second before laughing too, “I have no idea what I’m doing either...It’s not like I expected myself to make any noises or anything....so uh, sorry if that was weird.”

“It wasn’t weird it was just-I was caught off guard and realized what was actually going on and I....ah forget it.”

I looked over at Jason who was just sitting there, looking just as nervous as I was, and we both started laughing again. “We’re such idiots aren’t we?” Jason laughed, “Things start heating up and we both just freak out!” 

“It’s fine, I think.” I mumbled, “But yeah let’s just stick to hugs and kisses for now.”

“Good idea.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ((Hey guess who's back! The semester is finally over so I'll have the time to update this at a pretty regular time again! Thank you so much for putting up with me and the month-long hiatus I needed to take to finish up all my school stuff. Also thank you for so much feedback on this story, I'm really glad so many people are enjoying and getting something out of all this. It gives me a reason to keep going with it! I hope everyone has a nice day, and also buckle up because these next few chapters are emotional roller coasters.))

I tried to go to sleep after that, I really did, but it was a harder task than I thought. By the time 4:30 in the morning rolled around, I was still stuck up here fighting a losing battle. The only source of light in the room was the alarm clock on the nightstand which normally wouldn’t bother me, but tonight it was flashing as bright as a goddamn lighthouse against every wall in my room. I knew at this point I wasn’t going to ever fall asleep, but despite that fact I still tried my best. I buried myself far under the covers and refused to open my eyes in hope that I would eventually just drift into sleep, but nothing was working. After what seemed like an eternity I popped my head back out to check what time it was or how log it’s been, and only 10 minutes had passed. I was completely restless...and the coffee buzz was far gone. I wanted to act like I had no idea why I couldn’t sleep, but I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. 

I was up because I kept thinking about what happened between Jason and I earlier back in his room. I didn’t want to think about it since we agreed to let it be water under the bridge for now, but I couldn’t get the image out of my head. The look on his face and the sound of his voice were playing repeatedly inside my mind, and it was enough to keep me wide awake for hours on end. I guess I had shocked myself more than I thought when I just impulsively jumped the fuck in when things started heating up, even more so when I got that kind of positive response from him. I always thought I had better control of myself than that, but I guess I may have been a little off. I know I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, I mean, I am about to turn 16 in a few weeks anyways. Maybe it was just that I never thought I’d be so....typical? Everyone expects guys my age to be sexually impulsive and all that bullshit right? I guess kind of figured I’d never be put in that kind of position, or at least not now. Jason was all for it, which is fine, but I’m suddenly not as confident in my own self control as I was yesterday. I don’t know how to explain it. 

I rolled over and cursed myself. My head was filling with conflicting thoughts and ideas. A huge part of my was kicking myself in the ass because I had basically said “Hey let’s never do that again because I’m a dumb baby who doesn’t know what he’s doing haha” when in reality, the more I ended up thinking about it, the more I realized how much I enjoyed it....Guess I never really pegged myself as being some kind of pervert. I mean sure I’ve had my fair share of fantasies that I hope to god that no one ever finds out, but as soon as things got real I panicked the second I snapped out of it. I knew we didn’t even really do anything that intense, but for me in a way it was. Either way, no matter how much at war my mind was with itself, there was no denying the fact that I seriously enjoyed the fuck out of whatever the hell that was. I’d like to think that Jason did to...at least it sure sounded like he did. 

* * *

Morning came around and I had actually gotten about 4 hours of sleep by the time a knock on my door from Greg woke me up. I was groggy as hell, but decided to get up anyways. I ended up passing out around 6 and was woken up at 10 the same morning, which ultimately wasn’t that bad. Greg told me that breakfast was ready and that mom had made a dozen pancakes that were waiting for us downstairs. Greg of course launched full speed down the stairs and dragged me along with him and I could hardly keep up in my half asleep state. We had a good laugh about it when we got down the the kitchen, Greg was excited that he could finally out-run me. While I was helping set the table mom started talking to me while still finishing up the last batch.

“I’m only going to ask because I’m your mother and need to know. How late were you and Jason up last night?”

I jolted a little bit and a wave of momentary panic flashed over me. Did she know what we ended up doing? How’d she find out? I quickly decided to play the innocent card and respond with my own question. 

“Why?” I asked, keeping my voice steady despite my paranoid thought that maybe she had heard something last night. 

“I’m only wondering. I knew the two of you were going to be up talking late after everything that happened. I remember Jason telling me on the car ride back that he was probably going to vent to you and talk your ear off all night. I just wanted to know how late so if either of you decides to take a nap today or something we know how long to expect.”

“Oh.” A massive amount of relief washed over everything as my heart rate returned back to normal. I didn’t even know what I was so terrified of other than my own embarrassment...and being outed in one of the dumbest ways possible...actually no I had good reasons to be nervous when she asked that so suddenly, even though we didn’t even go that far to begin with, and we definitely weren’t being that loud. Feeling myself starting to get off track, I quickly continued. 

“We stopped talking around 3, almost 4. I ended up not being able to sleep until around 6 though. I don’t know about Jason. I don’t think he was up as late as I was but who knows.”

“Well, you should go downstairs and see if he wants any pancakes. There’s more than enough to go around!”

“Alright, be right back.”

As soon as I opened the door to the basement I was greeted by Jason reaching the top stair and nearly bumping into me. We stared at each other for a second before he chuckled and pushed past me with a quick “Pancakes, I know. I could smell them from downstairs.”

I watched him scamper into the kitchen almost nervously as I followed quietly behind. We both sat down and my mother was more than happy to see Jason up and around. I think she, along with the rest of us, had this idea in our heads that he was going to be in this horrible depressed slump and stay in bed all day. We wouldn’t have had any problems with that, it was just a pleasant surprise to see him up and around.

“How’s our favorite little house guest doing this morning? Did you get enough sleep?” Mom asked in her good-morning cheerful tone.

“Oh...I didn’t get much sleep at all actually. I was up all night.”

“All night? You didn’t go to sleep what so ever?”

“No, not really. I was up thinking about things.”

I glanced over at him and he quickly averted his eyes to the floor. I felt my heart skip a beat. 

“Well, if you were really up all night just know there’s no shame in taking a good nap.” Mom said, finishing up putting fresh pancakes on everyone’s plates. “You can go back to bed after we eat if you want.”

“That’s alright Mrs....Mrs...What your name again?”

“Oh sweetie, no need to worry about any formalities in this house. You can just call me Janice, or even just Mrs. Mom if you want.”

Greg and I started to giggle to ourselves. In an attempt to lighten the mood, I leaned over to Jason and whispered, “You know, even Greg and I don’t get first name privileges. You should totally take her up on that!” He smiled a little. 

“How about I call you Mrs. Janice?” he said with a small but honest smile, “Is that ok?”

My mom walked over and rustled his hair. “Such a sweet boy.” 

We mostly ate in silence not because of any sort of obvious tensions, but just that these pancakes were so good we were too busy stuffing our faces to engage in any kind of conversation. My step-dad was still upstairs sleeping, and Greg who had finished eating before anyone else had returned to his bedroom to work on something he referred to as “a project of upmost importance.” After about a half hour, we had eaten most of the breakfast and started to wrap things up for later. I was helping Mom put the leftovers in little plastic baggies to keep in the fridge for tomorrow, while Jason just thanked us for the food before going back to the basement. 

“Is he feeling alright?” 

“I’m not sure.” I mumbled, “I mean, we talked a lot last night, but we didn’t really talk about what happened? He said he just wanted to focus on other things and get it off his mind. Maybe he’s just thinking about everything he hasn’t told me yet.” As I told this to my mom, it hit me that we really didn’t talk about what happened at all. We just sort of...well, you know. After I left to go to bed he probably was awake just thinking about all the bullshit that went down in that court room. For a moment, even I forgot all about that.

“You should go down and talk to him, I’ll finish up in here.” 

“Ok, call me if you need me.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ((This chapter goes a little in depth again, so bit of a warning for more mentions of abuse))

When I reached his room downstairs, the door was closed all the way which was already kind of weird. It only confirmed that he was probably feeling upset about something. I knocked on the door a few time before I finally heard him ask “Who’s there?”

“Who do you think?” I responded with a little bit of lift in my voice. I wanted to sound at least a little happy, even though I was mostly just concerned. I probably should have waited for him to say ‘come in’ before entering, but I just opened the door like an idiot after I announced that it was only me. I was already standing in the doorway when he started saying not to come in yet. I stood there awkwardly and eyes wide with surprise as I looked at what was in front of me. Jason, who looked terrified and embarrassed had one of my shirts over his pillow like a pillowcase, and was in the process of taking it off when I walked in. 

“Is that my shirt?” I asked dumbly, even though it was clearly mine.

Jason stared at me like a deer in the headlights and started to stammer as he tried to explain himself. “So...uh....yeah, this is weird right?” He laughed nervously, “Finding me with one of your shirts and all, b-but it’s not what you think! I was just....um....”

“Dude?”

“Y-yeah?”

“I’m not mad or anything, just...curious. Where did you even get that?” That was a stupid question.

Jason blushed a little and looked off to the side. “I started doing my laundry last night since I couldn’t sleep and I found it hanging above the dryer. I was gonna put it back but...I don’t know. You already went upstairs and I thought you were asleep and I didn’t want to bother you or anything so I just-“

I started to giggle. “You wanted to cuddle or something?” 

He stared at me for a second before looking down and nodding his head. I started laughing. I wasn’t laughing at him by any means, it was just that after all the stressful things that have happened, this was the most adorably light-hearted things to be embarrassed over. I was actually trying to hold in my impulse to hug him because to me, this was just flattering. He was in a snuggly mood but didn’t want to bother me so he took one of my shirts? Holy shit. Most of the concern I had been feeling was quickly replaced with what I can only describe as warm butterflies or some sappy crap like that. 

“There’s no need to freak out!” I said while still laughing a bit, “That’s so adorable! I can’t even believe this! You are so damn cute you know that?” Jason blushed big time as I continued. “You thought I’d be weirded out by this? This is flattering! I don’t even know what to say this is so sweet.” Of course I wouldn’t normally say something so blunt like that, but this was just to cute for words. 

“So...you’re not mad? You don’t think it’s weird or creepy?”

“Of course not! Jason, we’re dating. Speaking honestly I think this is honestly the most flattering thing I’ve ever heard of. You thought I was asleep so you just took one of my shirts because you didn’t want to bother me? While you were doing laundry? Goddamn it Jason stop being so cute.”

He started to laugh nervously too, and I hugged him tight. “You don’t need to worry about bothering me. Especially if you just want some snuggles. I like holding you. It makes me feel happy knowing I’m helping you feel loved like you deserve.” 

He hugged me back for a few seconds before letting go and tucking some loose hair behind his ear. His voice was suddenly lowered in volume and he looked almost ashamed. “I know you love to cuddle as much as I do but...”

“But what?” I asked, honestly confused now. Why did he look so uncomfortable?

“Last night.” He started, not looking me in the eye anymore, “Last night when things escalated, you were clearly uncomfortable. I didn’t want to bother you with even more physical contact if you were already all freaked out. I was worried if I had followed you upstairs and asked if we could fall asleep together you’d be even more off-put. I didn’t want to overwhelm you or push too far if you weren’t comfortable with it....But if we’re just being honest here I’m just gonna say it. I loved it. It felt amazing and it made me feel so warm and special. I don’t care how dumb or weird it is, It really helped me feel better. When you got freaked out and uncomfortable I didn’t want to push any farther.”

I blinked. “Oh...” 

“After you left I was just alone with myself thinking about how great it felt and how much comfort you bring to me. Especially after something like that, which I’d never really experienced before, I was in the mood to hug it out or something. But you looked so out of it, I was afraid that I did something that made you uncomfortable so I didn’t want to chase after you or anything like that. I thought you wanted some space or something so that’s why I just took one of your shirts. I care about you so much and you do so much for me already, the last thing I ever want to do is make you feel unsafe.”

“Hold on a second, unsafe? I didn’t feel unsafe! If anything I was just embarrassed because I didn’t know what to do from there! I didn’t know what you were comfortable with so I wanted to stop...Did you really think you did something wrong?”

Jason looked at me sadly and nodded. “I thought maybe I freaked you out with...” his voice trailed off as he looked down and nervously played with his fingers. “...with how I responded to what you were doing...and stuff.” 

I sat quietly before I spoke again. The longer I looked at him the more I realized that he was past the point of embarrassment and was reaching the point of shame, which was seriously unnecessary. 

“It really wasn’t that you did anything wrong, I was more uncomfortable because I was afraid I was gonna do something that you weren’t ready for or didn’t want. It’s not like I thought we were going to get really far with anything, but...” 

I felt myself start to get this odd feeling in my stomach as I began to blush at the thought of what I was about to say. Jason was looking at me waiting for my to finish my sentence, but part of me felt humiliated admitting something like this. I knew this was something he wanted to talk about now so I shouldn’t be afraid to tell the truth, but I guess somewhere I was still not really sure how I wanted to go about explaining it. I took a deep breath and just went with it.

“I was really enjoying it too...like, really enjoying it. It startled me how much I was enjoying it. It wasn’t that you did anything wrong, trust me on that. It was just that...” I started blushing harder, “In the moment everything just felt so amazing I just sorta lost myself and it freaked me out because I’m already anxious about everything anyways...It really wasn’t you.”

“I think I understand, don’t worry.” Jason said with a bit of a smile. “I think it’s not that we’re of unsure how we felt, it’s that we’re unsure of what to do or how to react with how it made us feel. Right?”

“Yeah....that’s it.” I rubbed the back of my head nervously. “Sorry if I made you worried.”

“It’s ok, I’m just glad you’re doing ok with everything.”

“Yeah...about that.” I said, remembering the original reason I wanted to come down and talk to him. “I know I’m doing alright with everything right now, but what about you?”

“Me? I already said that-“

“No, not about that. About everything else. Everything that you wanted me to distract you from. The courtroom.”

He froze up and glanced at the floor. 

“You don’t need to talk about anything right now if you don’t want to, I just want to make sure you’re alright. Last night was fun and all but it was just a distraction when we get right down to it, that’s why you felt so impulsive? I know you don’t want to think about it but you’ve got to come to terms with it eventually, and I have a feeling that pushing it away until later is only going to make it hurt more.”

“I know that. Believe me I know that. But I just...I can’t deal with it right now. I don’t know how to talk about it. If I even begin to think about talking about it I lose my voice and can’t find the words, it’s like I go mute for however long I try for. I lock up and it hurts. I don’t want to talk about it now because....then it’s like I’m back in the room again with everyone shouting over each other...Wirt the noise was so bad, everything was so loud.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. He said he wasn’t going to talk about it, but it started leaking out. I had a feeling it might happen this way.

“You should have heard it, Wirt. All they did was yell. I started talking about how they would treat me and then he asked me how many times they’ve even hit me. When I told him the truth my parents went ape-shit. They started yelling that I was lying and they were staring me down like how they would before they throw a fit and I started to try and hide behind your mom, who was standing near my the table I was at. The judge said that was proof enough. I didn’t even think about it. It was like an impulse. They give me that look and it’s time to hide. It’s been like that for a really long time.”

I sighed. “Let it out dude, you’ll feel better.”

“Do you know why my voice is like this, Wirt?” he suddenly asked, staring at the floor looking both sad and angry. I sat quietly and listened closely. “When I was around 5 years old, I used to get into arguments with them all the time. It never got violent but one day I got really mad about something and threw a fit while we were outside. People started staring and they dragged my back in the house and beat the living shit out of me. I don’t remember anything else except waking up in the hospital and the doctors saying that I shouldn’t play in the street anymore. My parents told them I got hit by a car. From that point on I never sounded the same. I don’t know what kind of science it is but my voicebox got fucked or something....that’s when everything became different.”

“Oh my god.” 

“It was from that point on they were violent. I thought it was normal. I thought this was how parents were like for everyone. It wasn’t until middle school did I make a few friends who would talk about how much they loved their parents and when I was invited to my first sleepover, I met all their families and I was so confused. I was so....so confused. When you grow up like that, everything just seems so normal...you expect things to happen a certian way and when they don’t, that’s when you’re lost. I started to learn that what they were doing was wrong, but I still always thought they loved me, so I never reported anything. After a lot of the really bad days, I’d come home from school and they would have bought me something expensive or that they knew I wanted. That’s how I got my laptop. That’s why everyone in school thought I was rich. I played along with it because it made people like me. And the things I would give to people? It was so easy because I knew that I’d just get more anyways after another day of having something thrown at me. I liked having a lot of friends, even if they were fake.”

“Jason...”

“Sara was the first friend I ever had that started asking me about my life, real questions. It started because I always slept over at her house while her mom was away, and one day she asked me if she could stay over at mine. When I kept telling her know she kept asking why. She didn’t mean to upset me, she was just teasing but I ended up getting really scared. After that she just caught on to things and respected my decision not to tell anyone else. She knew I needed someone to trust, even if at the time it would have been a better idea to just call the cops.”

“And I was one of those dumb fake friends who didn’t give a real shit....I’m so sorry.” I felt like garbage. “Not even that, I was a shit head to you all the time. You were always trying to include me in things and I would get all angry and tell you to get lost....I’m really, really sorry.”

Jason smiled a little bit, “Well that’s not really a problem now...right?”

I played with my hands nervously. “I...I’m really sorry you went through all that...from the time you were 5?” 

“Maybe earlier, that’s just as far back as I can remember. Or maybe-Wirt? Are you ok?”

I had started to cry without noticing. Jason started asking me if I was ok and I wanted to scream. I had the disturbing image of a tiny toddler Jason getting beaten so hard his voice stayed broken for the rest of his life. He was sitting two feet away from me. All that history leading up through yesterday, sitting right in front of me inside someone who was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, who I had treated badly for most of the time I’ve known him...I cried. I felt so angry. 

Before he could react I took his hand in both of mine and squeezed tightly. “Nothing like that is ever going to happen to you ever again. Never. Again. You’re living in my house, under my roof, with my family, and no one is out to get you. You’re safe now, I’ll make sure of it. Do you have any idea how strong you are? How amazingly strong you are? You’ve been through hell and back and you’re still here. I’m glad you’re still here. If roles were reversed and I’d been the one smacked every night I would have.....n-nevermind. J-Jason...please never doubt yourself. You’re wonderful and amazing and the fact you have scars like this doesn’t effect your worth. You’re worth so much more than who you’re parents tried to build you to be. And I’m so, so thankful that you’re here, and I’m so fucking proud of you for getting out of a fucked up situation you called home. I wish I was as strong as you. And don’t you DARE feel bad about how I’m crying right now. I’m only crying because I feel so bad about all this, not the fact that you told me things. Talk whenever you need to, no guilt allowed....I love you so much...”

While I was saying all this with every inch of honesty I could find, Jason started crying too, though I was crying harder. Once I finally shut up, we both sat in dead silence just looking at each other for a few minutes before just hugging things out. His grip on me was so tight I thought the fabric of my shirt was going to rip. I held him tight and rocked a little while just saying how everything was going to be ok. 

We had no idea there was someone on the other side of the door. My mom ended up coming downstairs and opening the door without even knocking. Jason and I jolted and let go of each other as fast as we could the second we heard her step in. Greg was standing behind her holding onto her pant leg looking like he’d been crying too. Apparently Greg had come down to check on us at some point, and heard a lot of our conversation. He went crying to my mom, who of course came rushing down to see if we were ok. She sent Greg back upstairs and closed the door behind her. 

"Greg told me some of the things you two were talking about. I wanted to come down myself and make sure everything was alright." Jason and I still looked like a total emotional mess and only glanced at each other while not answering her questions. Without another word, she sat on the bed between both of us, and hugged us one in each arm. It felt really motherly, and we both cried like babies.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (I'm so sorry I haven't been able to update this fic in a timely manor anymore. I know I say this a lot but life just happens and gets in the way of things. I'll try to update it at least every 3 weeks and by that point it'll probably be 2 chapters at a time. Either way, I do still enjoy writing this story and have no plans on discontinuing it or anything like that. For those of you who are still keeping up, thank you so much and I hope you continue to enjoy it!)

Later that night after everything had settled down, we said our goodnights and went our separate ways. My mom tucked Jason in while I went back up to my room to fall asleep. I didn’t get into bed right away though, a spent a few long minutes just sitting on the edge of my mattress thinking. How much longer was this going to last? By that I meant everything that’s been going on. Jason’s been making huge amounts of progress, but how many more sleepless and tear-filled nights would there be? Would the next few years just be like this at least until we went to college? Was this really going to be the new normal? I didn’t want to think that I minded, but it was starting to ware me down big time. I would still be there to talk and to hold him if he ever needed me no questions asked, but now it was like things were starting to really sink in. 

My mom walked in shortly after I drifted deep in thought, but it wasn’t like I was going to object to her entering at this point. Besides, she knocked first this time.

“Hello dear, can I sit down for a little bit?”

“Sure.” 

“How are you holding up, kiddo?”

“Pretty tired, but ok I guess.”

“That’s alright. I just wanted to check up on you one more time, that was quite a display of emotions down there wasn’t it? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you let things out like that.”

“He was getting really down on himself, mom. What else could I do? Besides, if he was the only one crying he’d start feeling bad.”

“I’m not putting you in a corner or anything, no need to get defensive.” She said as she sat down and put a hand on my shoulder, “I just know how hard this must be for you too. I know you’re good friends, and I know you’re putting your best effort into making sure he’s holding up alright, but you need to look after yourself too.”

“He started telling me about times his parents beat the shit out of him when he was just a little kid. How apparently his voice is screwed up because of something they did to him when he was a child. Why would somebody be like that? What could make someone think that that’s an acceptable way to deal with a baby!? With anyone!? I don’t understand. How could anyone hurt someone like that...” 

“There are just some bad people in this world. I wish I had a better answer for that one. The important thing to remember here is that he’s in a far better place now. He’s in a place that’s safe and warm and away from all the harm, so now he can begin to heal.” She leaned over and have me a hug. “And you know what else? I’m so proud of you for being so good about all of this. I’m sure Jason is thankful too, you really are an amazing friend.”

I let go and smiled a little bit. “Thanks mom.”

“Well sometimes we just need a little reminder, right? And I’m not saying anything that isn’t true. I’m so lucky to have someone as great as you as a son.” She said while running a hand through my hair. My eyes got a little watery again but I quickly wiped them away and gave her another hug. It felt really nice to to sit quietly with her for a little bit. Everything had been so crazy lately that I forgot that something as simple as mom hugs could be so comforting. 

“Before I let you go to bed, there’s just one more thing I just wanted to talk to you about.”

“What’s that?” I asked, letting go of the hug and returning to my spot on the bed. She smiled gently and paused as though trying to figure out what it was that she needed to say. My mom always knew what she wanted to talk about, so for her to stop and try to find the words before speaking them was rare. She got up and closed my bedroom door before sitting back down and finishing her sentence. 

“Now don’t panic or anything, you’re not in any trouble. This is just something I think we should talk about.”

'Don’t panic?' I thought, 'Oh god what kind of bomb is she about to drop?'  
“What is it?” I finally asked. 

“Wirt, I know you and Jason are more than just friends.” 

I know she said not to panic but I still instantly felt the rush of anxiety stab me. My heart skipped a beat and it must’ve shown on my face at that moment. She put her hand up and stopped me from saying anything and just chuckled a little. 

“I said not to panic didn’t I? Just listen to me for a little bit.”

I sat quietly almost in some sort of self-induced shame. I found myself looking at the ground nervously with my hands folded on my lap despite her telling me not to worry. She reached out and turned my face so I was looking at her and continued speaking.

“Wirt, first of all I want you to know that it’s ok. Do you understand? It’s perfectly ok. Secondly, no your step father doesn’t know. I’m not sure how he’ll react but I haven’t told him anything. I’m not going to go around telling anyone anything if you don’t want me to. That’s part of why I wanted to talk to you about this.” 

I swallowed hard and scratched the back of my head. “How did you find out?”

“While the two of you were just hanging out downstairs the other day, I had some quality alone time with Greg. I was talking to him about what’s been going on and trying to put some things into a context that he would understand, because with all of this going on he’d have questions just like anyone else. Then our conversation drifted into me asking why he’s always been leaving the two of you alone all the time even though you’ve both said numerous times that he was always welcome. He then told me it was because he didn’t want to interrupt you guys if you were kissing again.”

“Oh...damn it Greg.” 

“Wirt, there’s nothing you could do that would ever make me stop loving you, also, there’s nothing wrong if you want to go with Jason. He's a very sweet boy with a big heart, and the entire family already loves him. Anyways, I stayed quiet about it because I caught on that the two of you were trying to hide it from us, but I still wanted to mention something about it because I just want to make sure you’re being safe.”

“Being safe? What do you-Oh! No we’re not doing anything like that! Um, I mean even if we were, b-but we’re not...at least not yet or...Nevermind!” 

She started to laugh. “I was more of talking in general but that’s good to know. So, how did it start?”

“I...don’t really know to be honest. It just kind of happened I guess.”

“Do you still like girls too or?”

“I do. Technically I’m bisexual or something like that.”

“That’s perfectly fine. I’m only asking because I want to be able to understand, that way if you ever needed anything I could know how to help.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate that. Did you tell Jason you know too?”

“I was going to, but he’s fast asleep. I could tell him tomorrow or if you just wanted to tell him that’s ok too. Besides, I have to go to work in the morning and I won’t be back until later. But if you’re going to take anything away from this, let it just be this. I love you and will love you no matter what. And whoever you decide to love, I’ll love them too. And I already love Jason just the way he is. You definitely fell for one heck of a sweetie-pea.”

“Thanks mom, I’ll bring it up to him tomorrow. He'll probably be really relieved. He never even came out to his parents. He's only ever been out to Sara, and most recently me. ”

“I hope it makes him feel better, the last thing I want is for him to have another reason to feel stressed out. Oh! and one more thing before I leave.”

“What is it?”

She walked back over to me and put a hand on my shoulder again. 

“Don’t ever think that you need to hide things from me. You have every right to your own privacy, but don’t ever hide things from me because you think I’ll be mad or anything like that. I’ll love and support you no matter what, ok?”

I smiled and gave her another hug before getting under the blankets. “Goodnight mom, and thank you so much.” She gave me a kiss on the forehead before finally leaving. I slept really well the rest of the night.


	23. Chapter 23

I woke up the next morning with a phone call from Sara. She called the house earlier than normal and of course my mom came in to wake me up. She told me Sara was waiting on the other line in the kitchen. When I finally managed to drag myself out of bed and down the stairs, I couldn’t even find where she set the dumb thing down. After a few minutes of searching I found it and answered, and apparently sounded groggy as all holy hell. I must’ve not come off as rude because as soon as I greeted her, she started laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“You are! Man, you sound like you just crawled out of the depths of hell. Sorry I don’t mean to laugh but your mom made it sound like you slept like a baby last night. It’s sort of ironic.”

“I did sleep well, that’s why it’s so hard to wake myself up. My brain still thinks I’m in bed.”

“Well either way, it’s time to get up. I have some free time today and I want to drop by to see how everyone’s doing. It’s been a little while.”

“Yeah, it has hasn’t it...Anyway, it’s fine. Mom’s gonna’ be out all day again and there’s kind of a lot to get caught up on.”

“I figured as much. I’ll be over around 3 if that’s ok.”

“Cool, see you later.” 

“Later.”

She was the first to hang up, and I scrubbed the bangs out of my eyes irritatedly. I did miss Sara and would normally be excited to see her, but I had been hoping for a relaxing day to settle down now that most of the main drama has finally died down a bit. Now with Sara coming over though, Jason would be telling her all about how things went, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle re-hearing everything all over again with a different person’s reaction. I sighed loudly to myself as I poured myself a glass of orange juice and sat at the table. Speaking of more drama, I figured I should probably tell Jason the news about mom knowing that we were a thing now. I was in an over all terrible mood this morning, which was mildly contradicting to everything I’ve ever been told my entire life. Last I checked the more rest you get the better you’re supposed to feel. 

I finished my juice and stretched before making my way to the basement door. When I reached Jason’s door, it hit me that he may not even be awake yet. He was always up earlier than I was, but you could normally hear him moving around his room or something, and everything was still silent. Maybe he was sleeping in? I carefully creaked the door open just enough to get a peek in. He was still fast asleep, the light drifting in from the small window near the ceiling showing all the little particles of dust floating gently around his face. He looked so peaceful, and the tiny sun beams leaking in from just the right angles really made him look beautiful. I couldn’t help but lean against the doorframe and smile, and just like that my bad mood was gone as if it was never even there. 

Careful not to make a sound, I quietly stepped in and just admired the adorable view for a few minutes and thought to myself how lucky I was to be able to actually call him mine. His hair was really messy and frizzy and the blanket was tucked just slightly under his chin. With how much he’s been crying lately, it was really relaxing just to watch him breathe with the silent light tracing over his sides. My mind started to wonder as took a few more steps closer to the side of his bed until I was just an arms length away. I gently reached over and brushed some of the loose strands of hair away from his eyes. His face twitched a little and I moved my hand down the side of his face. He mumbled a bit but still didn’t wake up. It was around 9:30 in the morning, and we were both usually starting to wake up around this time anyways. 

Still keeping my hand in place on his cheek, I leaned in and gave his forehead a little kiss. The stray hairs on his head tickled my face a little and made me smile against his skin. In that second he must’ve woken up because suddenly he started to stir a little. Before I could react I felt a hand reach around my shoulders and press against the back of my head, lightly pushing me forward into a kiss. It startled me, but I didn’t pull away. It was such a sleepy, uncoordinated kiss that only lasted a few seconds, but it was still sweet. When I lifted my head and looked at him, his eyes were half open and he had a big smile on his face.

“Well that was a wonderful way to wake up.” 

I blushed and started to chuckle, “I didn’t expect you to pull me in like that, you big dork.”

“Of course you didn’t.” He said, starting to sit up. “You were too busy combing your fingers through my hair and kissing my forehead to notice.”

“Shut up, you just looked so cute sleeping like that.”

“No it’s cool, I get it. You don’t need to try and explain.” He stretched, got out of bed, and gave me a hug. “Let me guess, it was the lighting that did it right?”

“Maybe.” 

I watched him get out of bed, get a comb out of his sock drawer, and start fixing his bedhead. I sat on his bed and watched for a few moments before saying something again.

“Honestly, I think you look way cuter with your hair all messed up.”

I must’ve said that last part in a weird way because suddenly he stiffened up and turned my way, a huge blush reaching across his face. The look of surprise he gave me poked me back to reality and I realized I had just made and adorable moment with my boyfriend overly awkward. I blushed and hid my face letting out a long sigh before speaking again. 

“Ohh man I’m sorry.” I mumbled under my hands, “I didn’t mean, ok I sort of meant, but not like-“

Jason pulled my hands down and chuckled. “It’s fine. Lets go get something to eat now.”

“Y-yeah.” Smooth move once again, Wirt.

We were half way up the stairs when I remembered what it was I originally came down to tell him. I tossed a few frozen waffles into the toaster and joined Jason at the table. 

“By the way, my mom know’s we’re dating.”

He shot me a horrified look, but then I proceeded to explain the rest of what my mom had told me and he seemed to calm down again.

“So she doesn’t mind?”

“Nope.”

“But you’re dad still doesn’t know?”

“Step-dad, and no he doesn’t. I don’t think he should though, at least not yet.”

“That’s ok. I don’t really want anyone else to know for now.”

“Also, Sara is coming over later. She was asking about you again.”

“That’s great! It’ll be good to see her again.”

“Yep.”

I grabbed the waffles out of the toaster and sat back down. We started to eat quietly for a few minutes before the smell of instant breakfast drifted upstairs and Greg came running down.


	24. (not a chapter, but an update!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Update from Ally! (may be deleted later once the new chapters get posted)

Ok so I've been updating things on my tumblr about me being on hiatus for the summer and things of that nature but it never really occurred to me until now (because I'm really dumb) that I should probably put something here too because not everyone who follows the story follows my blog. So basically to sum things up I AM STILL WRITING UPDATES FOR THIS! IT'S NOT DISCONTINUED. I went on hiatus from June until August because a lot of really intense things were going on at home and it really got in the way of me doing anything basically. I'm not going to go into details but it wasn't exactly anything good.....kinda the opposite of good actually. But anyways, since I moved back to my apartment for the new semester I am planning on updating again. I know you're all losing your patients by this point and I can totally understand, especially since some of you never got my other updates so it was like I fell off the face of the earth for a while, and I'm sorry I didn't think of putting something up here sooner. I can't give an exact date right now because I'm still working a few kinks out of my schedule but I will say again, am going to continue this soon and it is by no means over. 

Also, thank you everyone for being as patient as you were with the lack of updates, and all the feedback I've been getting in the comments as well as on my blog really do mean a lot to me. It makes me really happy that there are so many people who enjoy this story and it motivates me to write more. (Also! my blog is kunaigirl.tumblr.com for those who're curious) 

I hope everyone has a nice day and thank you for reading/understanding!

-Allison (kunaigirl)


	25. chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hiatus is over! Thanks again for being so patient and it looks like for the most part fridays are gonna be the update days. Still not so sure on the exact scheduling yet because of classes but they'll be regular again. To be honest I really did miss writing this, so I'm happy to be back into the swing of it.

While Greg, Jason, and I all sat down at ate breakfast, my step dad quickly grabbed a to-go bag and raced out the door. I don’t know what he was in such a big rush for, but it’s not like we even had the time to ask before he was already gone. It was around 8:30am and still going to be a few hours before Sara would stop by, and when I mentioned that to Greg of course he was excited as ever. We kept talking at the table even after we were finished eating just because the conversations kept carrying over into other ones. Greg kept going on and on about this dream he had about being at school and wining a huge award or something. I sort of zoned in and out through most of it, I’ve heard this kind of dream from him dozens of times before. It was always something I was kind of jealous of honestly. He would aways have such bright and positive dreams all the time, while I’d be stuck with either nothing at all or just straight up nightmares. I didn’t tell anyone about them yet, and I didn’t really plan on it. 

“That’s really cool, Greg! You know, if ‘The best kid in school’ was a real award, I’m sure you’d win it. You’re too nice not to!” Jason loved buying into whatever it was Greg was talking about, even if it was something he’s told us a million times before. He was always so good at acting interested...He was acting right? Was I really the only one who got bored? Was Jason the better older brother now?

When Greg finally stopped talking about his dream, he ran over and gave Jason a hug. He laughed and scooped Greg up and spun him around a little bit before putting him back down. Greg was giggling and grinning ear-to-ear the whole time. It was really cute to say the least.

“I love having you as a new brother!” Greg suddenly said with enthusiasm. Jason just smiled and rustled his hair.

“I’m not really a new brother though, you know that.”

“It’s kind of like you are though! I mean you’re living here, I see you every day, you make me laugh, you make Wirt happy, mom and dad are happy too, so it is like you’re my new brother!”

“Thanks Greg. That means a lot.”

On that note, Greg pushed in his chair and ran back upstairs. Of course he didn’t help put away the dishes, but in his defense the two of us were there and I would’ve done the same thing if I had the chance. Mom used to tell me I’d be the first one to leave the table so I could get out of dish duty whenever possible when I was his age. While we got the dishes started, I couldn’t help but notice Jason looked really happy, like there wasn’t a single problem in the world to worry about. It was really refreshing so of course I had to say something about it.

“Looks like someone’s in a good mood today.”

“Well, yeah I am. I’ve got the feeling that today is going to be a good day.”

“Oh really now? I didn't notice. What makes you say that?” I grinned.

“Well,” he said while turning to me, “First of all, I had a wonderful wake up call from the cutest boy in the world, and then the cutest little brother in the world tells me that he loves me like a member of his family. Did you know when I was younger I always wanted a little brother or sister? For him to say that and mean it really does make me feel great. Then we get to see Sara again today and catch up on a bunch of things too?” He walked closer and got himself between me and the sink. “If you ask me that sounds like a start to a pretty good day. What about you?”

He smiled at me gently then wrapped his arms around my neck. I smiled back and brought him closer until our foreheads were touching, while the bright sun was peaking through the window; thus making this scene as generically lovey-dovey as possible. We started to laugh in the moment, suddenly becoming self-aware at how cheesy this all was; but still decided to go with it and sway back and forth like a little dance in each others arms. It wasn’t long before he leaned forward and kissed me. We quietly kissed for a few solid seconds before I spoke again, still keeping my voice down to a low murmur.

“It’s so good to see you happy. That makes me happy.” I couldn’t help but speak against his lips while he continued planting one on me in such a way I kept grinning like an idiot. 

“Well I for one, love seeing you happy too.” Jason said while brushing his fingers though my hair, “You deserve to be happy as much as I do, and anyone else on this planet for that matter.”

This morning really was going well so far, everything was just so light hearted. It was like you could feel the calmness in the air, and it’s been so long since the vibe around here was anything besides total chaos. Especially for Jason, this overall mood was having such a positive impact on him. He kept smiling and letting out little giggles every so often, so it was pretty clear he was getting some of his confidence back, and damn was I enjoying it. He was so relaxed and loose, in the moment you could tell his mind was totally clear of all things except for me...or maybe it was just the look he was giving me that made me reach that conclusion. He kept gently combing through my hair, brushing his fingertips down the sides of my face and pulling me into more kisses while occasionally mumbling sweet messages against my jaw. 

I could feel myself started to let go of all my worries too, he had such a way of getting me to clear my mind. All I could think about was how good it felt. Knowing that I was the center of his focus, and he was doing these gentle gestures to me and me alone. It made me feel so special and loved like I’d never fully experienced before, it felt like true acceptance and validation...God I love when he does this. I hope this mood never leaves. I felt his hand trail down to the small of my back and pull me closer, which made me melt just a little bit more into the embrace. I couldn’t help but clumsily kiss him back with a little more force, and he seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. Before I knew it our gentle kisses transitioned into something a tad more passionate, and that continued for a little while. The difference this time being that it wasn't as awkward as the times before. Holy shit. 

This moment lasted only a few minutes before we finally let go of each other, completely red in the face but still unapologetically grinning like the idiots we are. We stood quietly for a little while and eventually started pushing in the chairs and straightening out the last of the kitchen mess.

“W-Well that was nice.” I said while quickly getting on track to putting away the last of the dishes, “So, what do you feel like doing now? Wanna’ go watch some TV or something? It’s still gonna be a while before Sara gets here.” I felt slightly stupid for changing the subject so bluntly, but my mind was a little fuzzy to say the least. Jason didn’t seem bothered by it, he just nudged me and laughed, walking past me with one of the dish towels and began drying the plates that were sitting in the drainer. 

“Sounds good.” He said calmly, “I’d like that.”

We finished cleaning up and walked into the other room and turned on the television. Once we found a station we decided to stay on I joined him on the couch. As soon as I got comfortable he leaned on my shoulder and held my hand. I felt myself blush a little bit as I rested my head on top of his. In the back of my head I knew this wasn’t going to last long. Jason may be having a good day now, but it’ll probably switch back to anxiety again tomorrow. Not that I minded, I’m always anxious anyways. Still though, I was happy enough that today was happening, where I can look at him smile and just know it’s not forced or fake to cover up broken and conflicting feelings. I was so happy he was having a good day, and I was so happy he was cuddled up to me like this. Even if this is temporary, I’m going to enjoy it, because him being so happy was making me happy too. 

I really wish it could just stay like this.


	26. UPDATE!!!

Ok, so I just realized I'm a huge jerk and forgot to post an update on here! Basically what's going on is more of the same and I feel bad for giving the same excuses but basically I'm on another hiatus with this story. Between things like being the the hospital a fews weeks ago and still being buried alive in project work and college work I've just really been way too busy to get around to updating this like I wanted to, and I'm really really sorry for that. I love writing this story and it does really still hold a big place in my heart and some of the comments I've gotten on it really do motivate me to write more, and I'm sorry I haven't had the chance too in like....2 months now? Damn I'm sorry guys. I know it doesn't mean much probably but I STILL WANT TO KEEP WRITING IT. I AM NOT GIVING UP ON THIS STORY, LIFE JUST KEEPS KICKING MY ASS. Thank you so much for still going along with the story and the fact that so many people keep asking about updates just makes me realize how many people still love it and I PROMISE I will update it when I get the chance. I mentioned all this on tumblr about 3 weeks ago but....like the idiot I am I forgot to post something here too. I'm sorry about not updating trust me I REALLY love writing this and christmas break is coming up and I plan on putting up a few chapters when finals are over....Again, I'm so sorry I can't update frequently at this time and your patience means the world to this over stressed college student. Thanks for putting up with me, and I hope you all have a wonderful day/night/whatever time it is when you read this. 

TL;DR - IT'S NOT OVER. I STILL HAVE PLANS TO CONTINUE THIS STORY TO COMPLETION. I know I say that a lot but I really do sincerely mean it. 


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